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By  the  Same  Author. 

SUBSTANCE  AND  SHOW, 

AND  OTHER  LECTURES. 

Complete  in  one  vol.  16mo. 

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HOUGHTON,  OSGOOD  &  CO.,  Boston. 


CHRISTIANITY  and  HUMANITY; 


%  $ttm  ai  Sermons 


THOMAS    STARR    KING, 


EDITED,   WITH  A   MEMOIR. 


By  EDWIN  P.  WHIPPLE. 


'''^'^"^'^•V/4. 


FOURTH    EDITION. 


BOSTON: 

HOUGHTON,  OSGOOD,  AND  COMPANY. 

West  i^ibcrsitie  t^rrss,  Cambritfge. 

1880. 


Copyright,  1877. 
By  JAMES  R   OSGOOD  &  CO. 


CONTENTS',  . 


Page 

MEMOIR vii 

I  .    The  Experimental  Evidence  of  Chris- 
tianity        I 

II.    Cries  from  the  Depths        ...  17 

III.  The  Supremacy  of  Jesus  .        .        •        •  33 

IV.  Christian  Thought  of  the  Future  Life  50 
V.    True  Spiritual  Communications     .        .  71 

VI.    Life  more  Abundantly         ...  90 

VII.    Lessons  of  the  Drought  .        .        .        .105 

VIII.    The  Christian  and  the  Heathen  Dollar  122 

IX.    The  Divine  Estimate  of  Death     .        .  136 

X.    Distribution  of  Sorrows     ...  155 

XI.    Deliverance  from  the  Fear  of  Death  171 

XII.    The  Two  Harvests        ....  188 

XIII.  The  Organ  and  its  Symbolism        .       .  204 

XIV.  The  Supreme-Court  Decision,  and  our 

Duties ^24 


vi  Contents, 

XV.  Living  for  Ideas  and  Principles         .  242 

XVI.  The  Heart,  and  the  Issues  of  Life  254 

XVII.  Salt  that  has  lost  its  Savor;  or,  Re- 
ligion Corrupted        ....  267 

XVIII.  Lessons  from  the  Sierra  Nevada  .  285 

XIX.  Living  Water  from  Lake  Tahoe        .  304 

XX.  The  Comet  of  July,  1861  .        .        .  325 

XXI.  Religious  Lessons  from  Metallurgy  .  348 

XXII.  Christian  Worship     ....  363 


LlBli  A  R  Y  ""^ 

UNIVKK8J  TV   OF 

CALJFOILXIA. 


MEMOIR. 

THE  writer  of  the  sermons  in  this  volume 
was  widely  distinguished  as  an  eloquent 
preacher  and  lecturer  ;  but  perhaps  the  affection 
and  admiration  which  were  attracted  to  him  as  a 
rare  example  of  Christian  manhood  do  more  jus- 
tice to  his  character  than  even  these  discourses 
can  do  to  the  intellect  which  was  the  offshoot  and 
expression  of  it.  Nobody  more  quickly  converted 
chance  acquaintances  into  warm  friends.  To 
know  him  was  to  love  him.  Persons  of  all  grades 
of  mind,  culture,  occupation,  and  disposition  felt 
the  effortless  strength  and  charm  of  his  rich  and 
genial  nature,  from  the  common  beggar  who 
intruded  into  his  study  with  his  pathetic  appeal 
for  help,  always  kindly  met,  all  the  way  up  to 
such  an  intellectual  giant  as  Agassiz,  who  came 
to  converse  with  him  on  the  question  of  the  Di- 
vine Personality,  a  subject  dear  to  the  hearts  of 
both  preacher  and  naturalist.  He  thus  necessa- 
rily made  a  host  of  friends  ;  and  one  of  these  now 
attempts  to  give  a  brief  summary  of  the  incidents 
of  his  life  and  the  qualities  of  his  character. 

Thomas   Starr  King  was  born  in  the  city  of 
New  York,  on  December   17,  1824.     His  father 


viii  Memoir  of 

was  of  English,  his  mother  of  German,  descent. 
Both  were  characterized  by  largeness  and  gen- 
erosity of  soul.  The  Rev.  Thomas  Farrington 
King,  the  father,  was  a  Universalist  minister  of 
the  Restoration ist  type,  and  was  noted  among  the 
clergymen  of  his  denomination  for  the  fervor  with 
which  he  preached  self-renunciation  for  the  sake 
of  Christ,  and  the  cheerful  way  in  which  he  sub- 
mitted to  the  hardships  of  poverty  in  his  zeal  to 
prove  his  doctrine  by  his  conduct.  Like  his  son, 
he  was  the  ever-ready  victim  of  what  are  called 
unworthy  objects  of  charity,  that  is,  of  persons 
who  need  charity  the  most.  For  example,  when 
he  was  settled  in  Portsmouth,  N.  H.,  he  was 
once  called  down  from  his  study  by  a  rough- 
looking  Irishman,  who  had  established  himself  in 
the  sitting-room,  and  who  demanded  help.  "  What 
do  you  want?"  Mr.  King  mildly  inquired. 
*^  Money  enough,  your  riverence,  to  get  to 
Boston."  "Why  do  you  call  on  me  rather  than 
on  the  Roman  Catholic  priest } "  "  Well,  I 
thought  I  'd  give  you  the  preference."  "  Where 
did  you  come  from  last?"  "Concord."  "In 
what  part  of  Concord  ? "  "  Well,  your  riverence, 
I  think  they  call  it  the  State's  Prison  ;  but  mind, 
I  was  n't  put  in  there  for  any  dirty  larceny,  but 
for  having,  in  an  unguarded  moment,  just  laid  my 
hands  on  a  countryman  of  mine  in  a  way  they  call 
manslaughter."  With  the  fluent  eloquence  char- 
acteristic of  his  race,  he  proceeded  to  urge  his 
claim.     The  Universalist  minister  only  knew  that 


Thomas  Starr  Kinc;;.  ix 


'e>* 


the  fellow  was  in  want,  was  disposed  to  do  better 
in  the  future,  and  was  confident  he  could  obtain 
work  if  he  was  supplied  with  the  means  of  getting 
to  Boston.  The  money  was  given,  though  it  stinted 
the  pastor's  family  of  some  minor  necessities.  The 
Irishman,  who  was  sound  to  the  core  as  to  the 
dogmas  of  his  church,  overwhelmed  the  Universal- 
ist  minister  with  thanks,  wishing  him  all  blessings 
in  this  world,  and  adding,  with  a  roguish  twinkle 
in  his  eyes,  "  And  may  ye  be  in  heaven  a  fortnight 
before  the  Divil  knows  ye  're  dead  !  "  The  reci- 
pient of  this  equivocal  blessing  had  sufficient  sense 
of  humor  to  understand  how  the  man  was  grateful 
for  the  service  done  to  him,  but  was  still  careful  to 
preserve  his  own  position  as  a  devout  believer  in 
the  church  which  looks  on  Universalists  as  out- 
casts from  the  heavenly  kingdom. 

It  is  plain  that  such  a  clergyman,  when  he 
died,  would  leave  little  to  his  family.  From  1835 
to  1839  he  was  the  minister  of  a  flourishing  Uni- 
versalist  society  in  Charlestown,  Mass.,  and  was 
much  beloved  by  his  congregation.  He  died  at 
the  age  of  forty-two,  living  long  enough  to  witness 
the  precocity  of  his  son,  and  to  feel  sure  of  his 
future  eminence.  Indeed,  the  boy  had  early  mani- 
fested singular  aptitude  for  study,  and  equally  sin- 
gular obedience  to  every  call  of  duty.  He  was 
as  conscientious  as  he  was  vivacious  ;  full  of  fun 
and  frolic,  yet  endowed  with  a  premature  purity 
and  thoughtfulness  which  kept  him  free  from  the 
coarseness,  roughness,  and  disregard  of  the  claims 


X  Memoir  of 

of  others,  which  are  apt  to  characterize  lads  of  a 
mercurial  temperament. 

His  education  was  desultory,  but,  with  his  quick- 
ness of  apprehension,  he  acquired  Latin  and 
French  at  an  early  age.  More  than  this,  he 
seemed  at  once  to  perceive  that  the  acquisition 
of  a  language  was  valuable  chiefly  as  it  opened 
the  door  to  an  acquaintance  with  its  literature. 

At  the  age  of  fifteen,  when  his  father  died,  he 
became  the  head  of  the  family,  and  subordinated 
his  hunger  for  knowledge  to  the  pressing  practical 
needs  of  his  new  position.  He  became  a  clerk 
in  a  dry-goods  store,  then  a  teacher  in  a  grammar- 
school,  then  a  clerk  in  the  Charlestown  Navy  Yard, 
devoting  his  gains  to  the  support  of  those  whom 
his  father's  death  had  left  in  straitened  pecuniary 
circumstances.  His  leisure  was  pretty  equally  de- 
voted to  study  and  social  enjoyments.  Theodore 
Parker  made  King's  acquaintance  Avhen  the  latter 
was  about  nineteen;  and  speaks  of  him,  in  his  diary, 
as  a  "capital  fellow,  who  reads  French,  Spanish, 
Latin,  ItaHan,  a  little  Greek,  and  begins  German." 
He  adds,  "  A  good  listener."  The  youth  evi- 
dently had  his  ears  open  to  the  talk  of  such  a 
scholar  and  social  force  ;  but  though  he  listened 
respectfully,  without  debating  Mr.  Parker's  dog- 
matic judgments,  he  had  his  eyes  open  as  well. 
At  this  period  of  his  life  he  modestly  heard  what 
the  eminent  men  who  made  his  acquaintance  had 
to  say;  he  was  reticent  as  to  his  own  opinions  on 
the  subjects  they  conversed  about ;  he  lured  them 


TJiomas  Starr  King,  xi 

on  to  pour  out  their  thoughts  by  the  eager  interest 
which  sparkled  in  his  eyes  as  he  looked  up  into 
their  faces  ;  and  it  was  only  in  letters  to  friends 
of  his  own  age  that  he  ventured  his  criticisms  on 
the  statements  they  made  and  the  principles  they 
expounded.  Earnestly  desirous  to  learn  from 
other  minds,  his  mental  hospitality  never  impaired 
his  mental  independence.  This  combination  of 
eager  receptiveness  with  critical  judgment  is  the 
condition  of  that  vigorous  and  rapid  assimilation 
of  knowledge  which  really  increases  intellectual 
power. 

The  studies  in  which  he  most  delighted  were 
metaphysics  and  theology,  especially  their  con- 
nection with  each  other  in  the  history  and  phi- 
losophy of  religion.  At  the  period  when  he  en- 
tered upon  what  may  be  called  his  intellectual 
life,  the  works  of  Cousin  were  exercising  a  great 
deal  of  influence  on  popular  New  England  thought, 
and  were  read  with  special  sympathy  by  those  who 
sympathized  with  the  humanitarian  theology  of 
Dr.  Channing.  Cousin  inspired  King,  as  a  boy, 
with  a  passion  for  general  principles ;  and  the  eclec- 
ticism of  the  eloquent  Frenchman,  as  it  proceeded 
on  the  ground  of  doing  justice  to  every  philosophi- 
cal thinker  by  placing  his  leading  thought  into  right 
relations  with  the  results  of  the  thinking  of  the 
whole  philosophic  world,  at  once  attracted  and 
expanded  his  inborn  tendency  to  intellectual  tol- 
eration and  comprehensiveness.  Among  the  two 
hundred  sermons  I  have  more  or  less  carefully 


xii  Memoir  of 

examined  in  order  to  provide  the  materials  of  this 
volume,  I  have  been  constantly  surprised  by  the 
fact  that,  strong  as  King  was  in  his  convictions  of 
the  truth  of  what  may  be  called  his  own  Univer- 
salist-Unitarian  belief,  he  was  ever  eager  and 
ready  to  recognize  and  interpret  the  faith  of 
churches  and  denominations  most  opposed  to  his 
own.  Whenever  he  was  called  upon  to  defend 
his  own  creed  against  an  aggressive  movement  of 
the  ministers  of  the  Orthodox  dogmas,  he  com- 
monly began  wdth  a  statement  of  the  value  of  the 
ideas  which  his  opponents  stood  for  exclusively, 
feeling  that  they  responded  to  needs  of  classes  of 
Christians  which  his  own  cherished  doctrines  did 
not  meet ;  and  whenever,  in  the  fervor  of  contro- 
versy, he  was  betrayed  into  any  of  the  exclusive- 
ness  he  was  combating,  I  am  convinced  that  every 
intolerant  word  he  uttered,  in  the  heat  of  the  mo- 
ment, left  a  bad  taste  in  his  mouth  after  it  had 
heedlessly  passed  his  lips.  For  this  general  dis- 
position to  interpret  rather  than  to  denounce  opin- 
ions which  were  at  variance  with  his  own,  he  was, 
probably,  much  indebted  to  his  early  reading  of 
the  works  of  Cousin.  This  disposition  is  shown 
in  so  many  of  his  sermons  that  it  must  have  be- 
come a  second  nature.  Running  through  all  his 
ministry  at  Charlestown  and  Boston,  it  is  specially 
observable  in  his  first  sermon  on  assuming  the 
pastorship  of  the  Unitarian  Church  in  San  Fran- 
cisco. Indeed,  it  is  repeated  so  often  that  it  at 
last  becomes  almost  wearisome  ;  though  why  such 


Thomas  Starr  King,  xiii 

a  principle,  involving,  as  it  does,  the  only  hope  we 
can  have  of  a  universal  Christian  Church,  bound 
together  by  the  spirit  of  Christ  rather  than  by 
dogmas  and  ceremonies  which  subordinate  his 
spirit  to  the  forms  in  which  it  has  been  organized, 
should  become  wearisome,  proves  that  the  sin  still 
predominates  over  the  saintliness  of  even  the 
chosen  persons  who  are  the  most  eminent  embodi- 
ments of  the  Christian  life  in  our  numerous  dis- 
tracted churches.  King  felt,  to  the  very  core  of 
his  heart,  that  the  only  true  Church  was  an  ideal 
one,  which  might  in  the  future  be  organized  by  a 
union  of  all  men  and  women  who  really  loved 
God  and  man,  and  acted  in  accordance  with  their 
belief.  Meanwhile  he  heartily  honored  every  hu- 
man being,  whatever  might  be  his  dogmatic  belief, 
whose  life  and  work  were  in  harmony  with  the 
beneficent  spirit  of  Christ. 

This  premature  comprehensiveness  of  mind 
was  deepened  and  extended  by  the  thoughtful 
reading  of  Channing.  It  is  difficult  for  young 
men  of  the  present  day,  disciplined  by  the  study 
of  Huxley,  Tyndall,  and  Darwin,  of  Strauss, 
Bauer,  and  Renan,  to  understand  the  magic  which 
Channing  exercised,  thirty-five  or  forty  years  ago, 
on  sensitive  youths,  born  and  bred  in  "  liberal  " 
families,  who  came  into  contact  with  his  devout 
spirit,  and  who  were  kindled  by  his  doctrine  of 
the  dignity  of  human  nature,  his  exaltation  of 
moral  over  intellectual  excellence,  his  confident 
statement  of  the  never-pausing  desire  of  the  Infinite 


xiv  Memoir  of 

to  come  into  cleansing  communion  with  his  finite 
children,  and  his  emphatic  announcement  of  the 
Fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man. 
As  a  youth,  King  had  no  vices  to  prevent  his 
cordial  reception  of  the  moral  and  spiritual  enthu- 
siasm which  animated  the  discourses  of  this  great 
preacher.  His  mind  quivered  with  a  new  delight 
as  he  felt  the  freshening  breeze  of  Channing's  re- 
ligious genius  stir  the  deeps  of  his  soul.  After- 
wards he  mastered  the  results  of  the  great  Ger- 
man and  French  critics  of  the  Bible.  To  many 
of  our  present  young  students,  exegesis  practi- 
cally means  exit  Jesus ;  but  King,  in  all  his  eager 
quest  of  truth,  and  dutiful  acknowledgment  of  the 
service  which  the  great  German  theologians  had 
rendered  to  the  rational  interpretation  of  the 
Scriptures,  never  lost  his  original  hold  on  Christ 
Jesus  as  the  express  image  of  God,  —  as  the  Son 
who  reveals  to  us  the  Father,  —  as  the  ideal  em- 
bodiment of  a  perfected  Humanity,  pointing 

"  To  that  far-off,  divine  event 
To  which  the  whole  creation  moves." 

Such  a  person  had  a  natural  call  to  the  minis- 
try ;  and,  though  he  had  been  trained  in  no  di- 
vinity school,  his  self-taught,  self-disciplined  mind 
was  filled  with  a  larger  store  of  well-arranged 
knowledge  than  ordinary  theological  students  then 
brought  from  the  teachings  of  either  Professor 
Park  or  Professor  Noyes.  He  had  the  advantage 
of  being  the  personal  friend  of  one  of  the  most 
accomplished  scholars  that  the  Universalist  de- 


Thomas  Starr  King,  xv 

nomination  has  produced,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Hosea 
Ballou  (2d),  —  a  friendship  which  years  only- 
deepened  and  made  more  intimate  ;  and,  through 
his  wonderfully  accurate  reports  of  the  three 
courses  of  lectures  on  Natural  Theology,  which 
the  Rev.  Dr.  James  Walker  delivered  at  the 
Lowell  Institute,  he  became  personally  acquainted 
with  that  acutest  of  metaphysicians  among  con- 
temporary Unitarian  divines.  Both  of  these  emi- 
nent men  exercised  a  marked  influence  on  his 
rapidly  forming  mind  and  character.  In  addition 
to  these,  he  had  all  those  professors  of  theology, 
philosophy,  and  literature  who  have  left,  in  books, 
undying  records  of  their  thoughts  and  lives ;  and, 
in  imagination,  he  discoursed  with  Plato,  Des- 
cartes, Locke,  Berkeley,  Kant,  Reid,  and  Hamil- 
ton, with  Augustine,  Luther,  Calvin,  Hooker,  Tay- 
lor, De  Wette,  and  Martineau,  with  Virgil,  Tasso, 
Shakespeare,  Milton,  and  Goethe,  as  though  they 
were  not  only  authors  to  be  read,  but  august  per- 
sons who  deigned  to  count  him  among  their  circle 
of  acquaintances.  These  dead  or  distant  teachers 
were  all  alive  and  present  to  him  ;  and  he  studied 
under  their  guidance  as  though  they  were  lectur- 
ing to  him  from  the  professor's  desk.  The  result 
was,  that,  though  his  scholarship,  at  the  age  of 
twenty-two,  was  not  as  deep  as  it  was  broad,  yet, 
owing  to  his  singular  swiftness  of  apprehension, 
it  was  larger  than  most  educated  preachers  bring 
from  the  university  and  divinity  school  to  the 
pulpit. 


xvi  Memoir  of 

His  first  public  address  was  delivered  at  Med- 
ford,  Mass.,  on  the  4th  of  July,  1845.  His  first 
sermon  was  preached  at  Woburn,  in  the  autumn 
of  the  same  year.  Boyish  as  he  was  in  appear- 
ance, he  at  once  became  noted  as  a  preacher  of 
peculiar  attractiveness  ;  and,  after  serving  a  short 
apprenticeship  in  filling  the  pulpit  of  a  small  Uni- 
versalist  society  in  Boston,  during  the  absence  of 
its  pastor,  he  accepted,  on  the  2d  of  August, 
1846,  a  call  from  the  large  and  flourishing  Uni- 
versalist  Church  in  Charlestown  to  be  its  pastor. 
Thus,  before  he  had  arrived  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
two,  he  succeeded  to  the  same  pulpit  which  his 
father  had  filled  at  the  time  of  his  death,  at  the 
age  of  forty-two.  His  immediate  predecessor 
was  the  Rev.  Edwin  H.  Chapin,  who  had,  during 
his  ministry,  exhibited  the  germs  of  all  those 
qualities  which  have  since  raised  him  to  a  high 
rank  among  the  most  renowned  pulpit  and  plat- 
form orators  of  the  United  States.  King's  slen- 
der figure  was  in  as  marked  contrast  to  Chapin's 
stalwart  frame  as  the  "sweet  reasonableness"  of 
his  persuasive  eloquence  was  to  the  rush  and 
vehemence  of  Chapin's  glowing  arguments  and 
appeals  ;  but  he  still  satisfied  the  raised  expecta- 
tions of  his  hearers,  and  during  the  two  years  he 
held  the  position  of  their  pastor  he  steadily  grew 
in  mental  and  moral  stature. 

Still  there  was  one  trouble  which  vexed  him  in 
his  pastorate.  His  hearers  had  known  him  as  a 
boy ;  and  he  came  to  preach  to  them  as  a  grad- 


Thomas  Starr  King.  xvii 

uate,  not  of  the  college  and  divinity  school,  but  of 
the  dry-goods  store  and  the  Navy  Yard.  Then 
he  was  the  least  clerical,  in  the  formal  sense  of 
the  word,  of  human  beings ;  and,  indeed,  so  he 
continued  to  the  end  of  his  life.  His  inborn  joy- 
ousness  of  temperament  burst  forth  in  the  social 
meetings  of  the  society,  sometimes  in  all  the  fine 
extravagances  of  mirth ;  and  certain  staid  people 
probably  shook  their  heads,  w^hen  they  saw  their 
boyish-looking  minister  indulging  in  all  the  ex- 
uberance of  boyish  animal  spirits.  In  the  pulpit, 
by  the  beds  of  the  sick  and  the  dying,  in  all  the 
scenes  which  test  a  minister's  helpful  sympathy 
with  grief,  suffering,  penitence,  or  aspiration,  he 
showed  himself  profoundly  and  tenderly  serious ; 
in  his  articles  in  the  Universalist  Quarterly,  and 
in  his  lecture  on  Goethe,  he  exhibited  a  serious- 
ness of  the  intellect  the  only  fault  of  which  was 
that  it  seemed  to  be  beyond  his  years ;  but  in 
ordinary  intercourse  with  his  parishioners  he  rec- 
ognized no  distinction  between  clergyman  and 
layman,  and  never  put  on  gravity  when  there  was 
no  gravity  in  the  occasion.  It  was  impossible  for 
him  to  assume  what  he  did  not  feel  merely  to 
accommodate  himself  to  the  etiquette  of  his  pro- 
fession ;  and  his  feelings  were  so  acute  that  at 
the  least  call  for  a  serious  mood  his  flexible 
nature  became  instantly  absorbed  in  it,  and  the 
tears  would  glisten  in  his  eyes  almost  before  the 
smile  had  left  his  lips.  It  did  not  require  for 
this  transformation  the  presence  of  calamity  or 


xviii  Memoir  of 

sin  ;  the  utterance  of  a  noble  thought,  the  sight 
of  a  great  aspect  of  nature,  would  effect  it.  I  re- 
member one  occasion  when  I  was  his  companion 
in  a  wagon,  which  he  was  driving  through  one  of 
the  roughest  roads  amid  the  wildest  scenery  of 
the  White  Mountains.  The  talk  between  us  had 
been  very  hilarious,  when  suddenly  we  came  upon 
a  magnificent  view.  The  reins  quickly  loosened 
in  his  hands ;  his  eyes,  his  whole  countenance, 
became  irradiated  by  that  peculiar  light  which 
indicates  the  complete  absorption  of  the  soul  in 
the  beauty  and  grandeur  it  contemplates.  After 
two  or  three  tilts  of  the  vehicle,  each  of  which 
threatened  its  overthrow,  I  ventured  to  suggest  to 
him  that,  as  a  clergyman,  he  doubtless  had  a 
proper  and  commendable  disregard,  if  not  con- 
tempt, for  this  life,  but  that,  as  a  layman,  it  was 
not  to  be  expected  that  I  could  fully  share  his 
theological  feeling,  or  contemplate  without  appre- 
hension that  abrupt  close  to  my  physical  exist- 
ence which  I  saw^  was  momentarily  impending, 
and  that  therefore  I  should  be  much  obliged  if  he 
would  hand  me  the  reins.  This  was  said  with  all 
becoming  mock  gravity  j  and  he  came  back  to 
individual  consciousness  with  a  burst  of  laughter 
which  made  the  rocks  and  woods  ring  with  merry 
echoes.  Indeed,  the  tears  and  laughter,  the  so- 
lemnity and  the  hilarity,  of  this  lovable  creature 
came  equally  from  his  sympathetic  heart. 

There  was  no  positive  discontent  wdth  King's 
preaching  at  Charlestown,  and  there  could  not  be ; 


Thomas  Stan  King,  xix 

for  his  reputation  so  steadily  increased  that,  from 
the  time  of  the  second  year  of  his  ministry  to  the 
day  of  his  death,  he  may  be  said  to  have  had  con- 
stantly in  his  pockets  tempting  invitations  from 
other  religious  societies  to  leave  the  society  he 
served.  He  was  invited  by  the  Unitarian  Society 
in  New  York,  of  which  Dr.  Dewey  had  been  the 
pastor,  to  be  their  minister,  provided  he  would 
spend  a  year  in  the  Cambridge  Divinity  School 
before  he  entered  their  pulpit.  This  offer,  bur- 
dened with  such  a  condition.  King  very  properly 
refused  to  accept.  Another  call,  from  the  Fourth 
Universalist  Church  of  the  same  city,  was  also 
declined.  The  motive  which  really  induced  him 
to  leave  his  Charlestown  society  was  freely  ex- 
pressed to  me  and  to  other  friends.  "  The  fact  is, 
I  feel,"  he  said,  "  that  there  is  a  certain  incon- 
gruity in  my  position  there^  I  preach  to  mature 
and  aged  men  and  women,  who  have  seen  me  as 
a  boy  in  my  father's  pew,  and  who  can  hardly  con- 
ceive of  me  as  a  grown  man.  I  necessarily  can- 
not command  in  that  pulpit  the  influence  which  a 
stranger  would  wield.  It  is  best  for  them  that  I 
should  vacate  the  office,  though  they  have  always 
been  kind  and  considerate  to  me,  though  my  rela- 
tions to  them  are  of  the  most  pleasant  nature,  and 
though  some  of  them  are  bound  to  me  in  the 
closest  ties  of  personal  friendship." 

Meanwhile  the  Hollis  Street  Church,  a  Unita- 
rian congregation  of  Boston,  with  a  history  behind 
it  stretching  back  to  the  year  1732,  and  number- 


XX  Memoir  of 

ing  among  its  former  pastors  such  men  as  Mather 
Byles,  Horace  Holley,  and  John  Pierpont,  was 
earnestly  desirous  of  obtaining  King  as  its  minister. 
The  church  had  for  some  time  been  distracted 
by  internal  dissensions  on  questions  of  temperance 
and  antislavery,  and  had  suffered  from  many 
secessions.  Indeed,  it  seemed  that  the  organiza- 
tion which  had  endured  so  long  was  threatened 
with  dissolution.  But  among  its  members  was  an 
able,  learned,  astute  lawyer,  Henry  H.  Fuller,  an 
earnest  Unitarian,  and  an  equally  earnest  cham- 
pion of  the  Hollis  Street  Church.  He  could  not 
endure  the  thought  that  the  society  should  die, 
and  he  fixed  upon  the  young  Charlestown  divine 
as  the  person  to  save  it,  never  relaxing  his  efforts 
until  he  had  succeeded.  In  the  spring  of  1848 
Mr.  King  was  invited  to  be  its  pastor.  He  de- 
clined, after  due  consideration,  in  June  of  the  same 
year ;  and  immediately  after  sailed  for  Fayal  to 
recruit  his  health,  which  had  been  impaired  by  the 
studies,  labors,  and  anxieties  of  his  ministry.  On 
his  return  the  Hollis  Street  Society  renewed  its 
application ;  and  Mr.  Fuller,  especially,  never 
intermitted  his  arguments  and  appeals  until  he 
had  convinced  King  that  it  was  his  duty  to  com- 
ply. On  October  6,  1848,  he  accordingly  accepted 
the  call ;  on  the  next  day  he  notified  his  society, 
in  a  manly  and  tender  letter,  of  the  fact ;  and  on 
the  first  Sunday  in  November,  a  month  before  his 
installation,  he  assumed  his  new  office.  On  the 
17th  of  December,  eleven  daj's  after  his  installa- 


Thomas  Starr  King,  xxi 

tion,  he  was  married  to  Miss  Julia  Wiggin,  of  East 
Boston. 

His  happy  home  in  Boston  soon  became  an 
intellectual  centre,  where  many  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished Unitarian  and  Universalist  clergymen 
delighted  to  meet  him  and  each  other,  and  where 
his  winning  hospitality  —  a  hospitality  of  the  mind 
and  heart  as  well  as  of  the  table,  a  hospitality 
which  lavished  on  his  friends  everything  he  was  as 
well  as  everything  he  had  —  delighted  all  who  had 
the  good  fortune  to  partake  of  it.  Thither  also 
flocked  numbers  of  young  students  of  theology 
who  have  since  become  Christian  forces,  and  also 
hundreds  of  miscellaneous  persons  who  were  in 
need  of  his  help,  his  counsel,  or  a  portion  of  his 
ever-slender  stock  of  money.  His  door,  indeed, 
stood  wide  open  to  everybody  who  sought  either 
his  companionship  or  his  aid.  It  was  a  common 
occurrence  that  while  dictating  a  sermon  to  his 
amanuensis  he  would  be  called  to  leave  his  work 
in  order  to  welcome  a  visitor,  sometimes  a  com- 
mon beggar,  sometimes  a  doctor  of  divinity ;  and 
after  an  hour  or  half  an  hour  had  elapsed  he 
would  return  serenely  to  the  library,  and  proceed 
to  finish  the  half-completed  sentence  which  the 
visitor  had  interrupted,  though  it  seemed  so  en- 
tangled in  commas  or  semicolons  as  to  demand 
an  entire  recasting.  Indeed,  his  sweet  and  gentle 
patience  was  proof  against  every  annoyance,  even 
of  that  annoyance  which  is  found  to  irritate  the 
temper  of  the  saintliest  thinkers,  namely,  the  vio- 


xxii  Memoir  of 

lent  entrance  into  the  scholar's  study,  sacred  as  it 
should  be  to  devout  and  silent  meditation,  of  those 
sacrilegious  thieves  of  time  who  labor  under  the 
double  condemnation  of  being  at  once  intrusive 
strangers  and  voluble  bores.  During  the  eleven 
years  of  King's  ministry  in  Boston  it  is  probable 
that  not  a  single  person,  however  low  down  in 
the  scale  of  being,  ever  left  his  cordial  presence 
with  a  sensible  diminution  of  his  self-respect. 

Had  the  new  minister  adequately  understood 
his  task  he  would  not  have  undertaken  it.  He 
preached  to  a  remnant*  of  the  old  powerful  soci- 
ety, and  he  might  properly  have  taken  for  the 
text  of  his  first  sermon  that  w^hich  Dean  Swift 
was  said  to  have  selected  when  he  preached  before 
the  Worshipful  Society  of  the  Tailors,  namely, 
"  A  remnant  of  ye  shall  be  saved."  In  his 
*'  Words  at  Parting,"  in  1859,  he  confessed  that 
if  he  had  known  "the  precise  state  of  the  case, — 
how  few  of  the  pews  were  rented,  how  strong  was 
the  prejudice  against  the  church  and  the  very 
building  on  account  of  the  long  troubles,  and 
how  little  hope  for  the  future  of  the  parish  was 
felt  outside  of  the  committee  that  conducted  the 
correspondence  with  him,  —  he  would  not  have 
dared  so  great  a  venture  as  an  acceptance  of  the 
call."  But  Mr.  Fuller  was  right  in  peceiving  that 
all  that  was  needed  to  draw  a  society  together 
was  a  magnet.  In  a  comparatively  short  time  the 
empty  pews  began  to  fill,  and  a  new  and  strong 
society  was   established  on   the   ruins  of  the  old 


Thomas  Starr  Kin^,  xxiii 


'^' 


one.  The  pastor  gave  the  parish  eleven  years  of 
his  life ;  and  could  justly  congratulate  himself,  in 
the  last  sermon  he  delivered  in  the  church,  on 
speaking  to  five  times  as  many  parishioners  as 
listened  to  his  first.  The  reason  for  this  growth 
is  not  to  be  found  in  the  preacher's  accommodat- 
ing himself  to  the  opinions  and  prejudices  of  his 
congregation,  for  he  was  repeatedly  driven  by  a 
sense  of  duty  to  proclaim  unpalatable  and  unrec- 
ognized principles  which  hurt  the  feelings  of  many 
of  those  who  could  not  help  loving,  admiring,  and 
respecting  him  \  but  it  was  due  to  the  organizing 
power  in  the  individuality  and  soul  of  the  pastor 
himself.  "  Preaching  the  truth  in  love,"  he  could 
safely  surrender  himself  to  any  impulse  of  right- 
eous wrath  without  debasing  it  by  any  intermix- 
ture of  moral  malignity.  It  was  impossible  for 
him  not  to  preach  politics  from  the  pulpit,  because 
from  1850  to  i860  politics  had  invaded  the  prov- 
ince of  morals  and  religion.  The  questions  up 
for  discussion  did  not  relate  so  much  to  render- 
ing unto  the  American  Caesar  the  things  that 
were  Caesar's,  as  to  the  pretensions  of  the  Ameri- 
can Caesar  to  occupy  the  domain  of  those  things 
which  were  specially  reserved  as  "the  things'' 
appertaining  to  God.  Among  these  were  the  re- 
sistance to  the  Free  Soil  Movement  ;  the  Fugi- 
tive Slave  Law ;  the  Dred  Scott  Decision  ;  the 
elaborate  attempts  of  politicians  to  introduce 
into  politics  the  idea  that  the  Bible  sanctioned 
slavery,  and  that  Christ  came,  not  more  to  save 


xxiv  Memoir  of 

the  souls  of  whites  than  to  enslave  the  bodies  of 
blacks ;  that  it  was  impertinent  in  clergymen  to 
doubt  that  human  brotherhood  and  the  father- 
hood of  God  were  to  be  interpreted  in  a  sense 
which  would  not  interrupt  cordial  business  rela- 
tions between  the  North  and  the  South  ;  and  that 
the  pulpit  was  to  be  silent  while  the  principles 
of  Christian  morality  and  Christian  philanthropy 
were  violated  in  the  maxims  of  liberticide  which 
guided  the  dominant  politics  of  the  country,  and 
inspired  many  of  the  acts  of  its  administration. 

On  such  themes  as  these  Starr  King  preached 
as  duty  impelled  him  to  preach,  and  as  events 
furnished  him  with  the  appropriate  occasions  for 
manly  utterance.  It  was  understood  that  his 
resignation,  if  offence  was  taken,  was  always  at 
the  disposal  of  the  Perish  Committee.  The  most 
powerful  of  his  sermons  of  this  kind  was  that  on 
the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  the  Dred 
Scott  case.  The  dissenting  opinion  of  Mr.  Jus- 
tice Curtis,  questioning  the  truth  of  the  facts  as 
well  as  the  validity  of  the  reasoning  on  which  the 
majority  of  the  court  relied,  gave  him  the  shelter 
of  that  eminent  jurist's  authority  for  the  sound- 
ness of  his  arguments.  He  was  thus  enabled  to 
allow  free  way  to  the  rush  of  righteous  wrath 
which  urged  him  to  st.gmatize  what  he  considered 
the  enormous  crime  of  a  court  of  justice  passing 
beyond. the  proper  limitations  of  the  case  before 
it  in  order  gratuitously  to  legalize  lies  and  insti- 
tute iniquity.     In  the  delivery  of  parts  of  this  dis- 


Thomas  Starr  King,  xxv 

course  his  auditors  had  at  least  the  opportunity 
to  learn  that  their  minister  was  a  greater  orator 
than  they  hitherto  had  dreamed.  At  times  his 
ruddy  face  became  white  under  the  impatient 
pressure  of  the  moral  passion  which  filled  his 
soul ;  his  eyes  shone  with  a  lustre  that  had  never 
been  seen  in  them  before  ;  and  tones  came  from 
his  voice  which  surprised  those  who  were  most 
familiar  with  its  range  and  power.  Some  of  his 
friends  in  the  society  doubtless  felt  hurt  at  such 
an  outburst  from  the  pulpit,  dauntlessly  arraign- 
ing the  majority  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  land 
as  betrayers  of  justice  for  a  political  purpose  ;  but 
nothing  was  said  to  indicate  that  there  would  be 
any  falling  away  of  parishioners,  or  that  the  inde- 
pendent minister  would  have  the  slightest  cause 
to  send  in  his  resignation. 

Indeed,  the  pulpit  of  the  time  was  so  thor- 
oughly abolitionized  that  it  was  hardly  possible  to 
obtain  a  clergyman,  to  whom  people  would  con- 
sent to  listen,  who  was  not  tinctured  with  anti- 
slavery  opinions.  King  used  to  tell  a  story  of  a 
proslavery  acquaintance  of  his,  who  lived  in  one 
of  the  towns  adjoining  Boston,  and  who  was 
mourning  over  what  he  called  the  "nigger"  ha- 
rangues that  he  had  to  hear,  Sunday  after  Sun- 
day. "Why  did  you  settle  him?"  King  asked. 
"  Well,"  was  the  despairing  reply,  "  we  found  that 
we  must  have  either  an  abolitionist  or  a  darned 
fool,  and  you  must  feel,  Mr.  King,  that  we 
could  n't  have  a  darned  fool,  —  now  could  we  ? " 


xxvi  Memoir  of 

It  is  needless  to  add  that  King  solaced  him  as 
well  as  he  could,  ironically  sympathizing  with  the 
dilemma  in  which  the  parish  was  placed,  and  as- 
suring him  that,  on  the  whole,  he  thought  it 
would  be  better  for  them  to  have  a  bright  preach- 
er of  righteousness,  who  might  occasionally  make 
them  scream,  rather  than  a  stupid  preacher  of 
unrighteousness  who  would  constantly  make  them 
yawn. 

The  truth  is,  that  the  Hollis  Street  Society, 
though  made  up  of  persons  of  widely  different 
varieties  of  political  opinion,  loved  its  pastor,  and 
could  not  help  loving  him.  The  acuteness  of 
moral  sensibility,  the  depth  of  tender  feeling  for 
the  suffering,  the  aggrieved,  and  the  oppressed, 
which  impelled  him  on  certain  occasions  to  assail 
pernicious  political  tendencies  and  bad  acts  of 
the  government,  were  unintermittingly  displayed  in 
his  personal  sympathy  with  all  the  members  of 
his  parish  who  were  tried  by  those  afflictions 
which  specially  test  the  heart  and  soul  of  the  min- 
ister. He  was  cheer  to  the  despondent,  hope  to 
the  despairing,  comfort  to  the  mournful,  fellow- 
ship to  the  desolate.  The  words  he  uttered  from 
the  pulpit  were  inspiring  and  full  of  spiritual  nutri- 
ment ;  but  the  words  he  breathed  into  the  ears  of 
the  remorseful  and  the  penitent,  the  words  he  spoke 
in  the  chambers  of  the  sick  and  over  the  cofhned 
remains  of  the  dead,  were  the  words  which  bound 
him  most  intimately  to  those  of  his  society  who 
had  been  bowed  down  by  those  afflictions  of  life 


Thofnas  Starr  King,  xxvii 

which  fall  on  Democrat  and  Republican  alike. 
And  then,  in  his  ordinary  visits  to  the  homes  of 
his  parishioners,  it  was  felt  that  he  brought  the 
outer  sunshine  with  him  into  the  room  ;  or, 
rather,  it  may  be  said,  he  brought  with  him  the 
finer  and  rarer  sunshine  of  the  soul.  The  com- 
plaint of  those  members  of  his  parish  who  were 
sometimes  disturbed  by  his  emphatic  utterance 
of  antislavery  opinions  was  not  so  much  that  he 
shocked  their  political  creed,  as  that  his  engage- 
ments as  a  lecturer  interfered  with  the  frequency 
of  his  visits  to  their  homes. 

His  parish,  therefore,  understood  him.  Its 
members  instinctively  felt  that  it  pained  him  to 
give  pain  to  any  of  them,  and  that,  if  he  affronted 
their  political  prejudices,  he  did  it  from  the  same 
humanity  which  led  him  to  sympathize  so  cor- 
dially with  them  in  their  hours  of  sorrow  and 
calamity.  They  also  came  to  know  that  his  spir- 
itual was  so  exquisitely  connected  with  his  bodily 
organization,  that  any  wrong  done  to  a  person  or 
a  class  or  a  race,  any  insult  offered,  in  a  legisla- 
tive assembly  or  on  a  bench  of  judges,  to  a  great 
moral  principle  or  philanthropic  aspiration,  gave 
him  exquisite  physical  pain.  His  body  instinc- 
tively  responded  to  any  wound  inflicted  on  his 
soul.  When  he  read  of  an  outrage  committed  in 
a  Southern  State  on  the  rights  of  the  negro,  his 
imagination  at  once  realized  the  scene.  He 
changed  places  with  the  sufferer,  and  became 
himself  the  victim  of  the  brutality  he  abhorred. 


xxviii  Memoir  of 

His  own  flesh  quivered  under  the  lash  which  fell 
on  the  back  of  the  slave.  When  Anthony  Burns 
was  marched  through  the  streets  of  Boston  to  be 
returned  to  his  owner,  Mr.  King  probably  en- 
dured a  sharper  mental  agony  than  cut  into  the 
soul  of  the  poor  bondman  who  was  made  the 
centre  of  the  spectacle.  At  times  this  sensibility 
to  the  woes  of  others  was  not  confined  to  persons 
whose  sufferings  were  unjustly  inflicted.  I  can- 
not call  to  mind  what  his  general  opinions  were 
on  the  question  of  capital  punishment ;  but  one 
afternoon,  in  a  company  assembled  at  a  house  by 
the  sea-shore,  the  newspapers  arrived  with  the  de- 
tails of  the  execution  of  a  convicted  murderer,  who 
certainly  deserved  hanging  if  hanging  were  justifi- 
able under  any  circumstances.  The  guests  were 
merciful  people,  yet  each  seemed  to  read  his  paper 
with  a  kind  of  moral  satisfaction  that  justice  had 
been  done  to  such  a  criminal.  After  King  had 
read  a  dozen  sentences,  I  noticed  that  the  jour- 
nal slipped  from  his  hands,  the  blood  all  at  once 
dropped  out  of  his  cheeks,  a  faintness  seized  him 
as  if  he  had  been  stricken  with  a  deadly  sickness 
at  his  heart,  and  he  silently  withdrew  from  his 
companions,  incapable  either  of  objecting  to  their 
judgment  of  the  case  or  of  sympathizing  with  it. 
He  was  evidently  overcome  by  the  horror  of  con- 
templating the  scene  at  the  gallows,  as  it  was 
vividly  reproduced  by  his  imagination,  and  by  the 
additional  horror  of  thinking  of  such  a  darkened 
soul  passing  into  the  mysterious  region  beyond 


Thomas  Starr  King,  xxix 

the  grave  without  exhibiting  the  remotest  sign  of 
possessing  a  moral  nature.  A  minute  before  he 
had  taken  up  the  paper  he  was  in  his  most  hilari- 
ous mood ;  but  when  he  reappeared,  after  an 
hour's  absence,  there  was  no  mirth  in  him,  and 
no  mirth  to  be  extracted  from  him.  He  re- 
mained listless  and  unnerved  during  the  whole 
evening.  The  company  was  joyous ;  but  the 
criminal  dangling  on  the  gallows  was  still  visible 
to  his  mental  eye,  and  his  thoughts  were  evi- 
dently far  off  from  the  merry  noise  sounding  in 
his  ears,  and  fixed,  in  a  kind  of  wondering  de- 
spair, on  what  was  occurring  to  the  soul  of  the 
reprobate,  thus  ignominiously  released  from  its 
mortal  tenement  of  clay  to  meet  its  Creator  and 
Judge. 

It  is  not  to  be  understood  that  the  main  pur- 
pose of  Mr.  King  was  to  criticise  political  parties 
from  his  pulpit.  The  vast  majority  of  the  two  hun- 
dred sermons  which  have  passed  under  the  eye 
of  the  present  editor  are  devoted  to  the  incul- 
cation of  the  principles  of  practical  and  spiritual 
Christianity,  as  they  relate  to  the  right  method 
of  building  up  Christian  character  in  the  indi- 
vidual soul.  They  were  intended  to  meet  the 
wants  of  the  members  of  his  congregation  in 
everything  that  respected  their  conduct  in  private 
life  and  in  the  pursuits  of  business.  They  were, 
in  the  most  intense  New  England  meaning  of  the 
word,  "searching"  sermons.  FrivoHty,  selfishness, 
envy,  malice,  avarice,  inhumanit}^,  licentiousness, — 


XXX  Memoir  of 

all  sins,  indeed,  which  interposed  a  screen  be- 
tween the  human  soul  and  God,  —  were  relent- 
lessly exposed  by  an  analysis  which  pierced  down, 
through  layer  after  layer  of  religious  self-deception 
and  self-satisfaction,  to  the  ugly  vice  nestling  in 
seeming  security  beneath  the  smooth  and  elegant 
proprieties  which  hid  it  from  ordinary  view.  To 
awaken  every  boy  and  girl,  every  man  and  woman, 
who  listened  to  him,  to  a  consciousness  of  their 
sins  of  commission  and  omission  was  the  object 
of  this  Christian  pastor ;  and  his  way  of  doing  it 
w^as  by  appealing  to  the  reason  which  underlies 
passionate  unreasonableness,  to  the  good  will  par- 
tially suppressed  by  self-will,  to  the  possibilities  of 
the  soul  for  good  amid  all  its  wild  deviations  into 
evil.  He  specially  relied  on  his  power  of  per- 
suading those  who  would  have  been  proof  against 
all  invective.  By  an  imagination  which  ever  duti- 
fully accompanied  his  probing  analysis,  he  vividly 
exhibited  the  horror  of  the  state  of  sin,  —  its 
aridity,  barrenness,  hopelessness,  helplessness,  the 
absence  in  it  of  real  life  when  physical  existence 
is  shut  out  from  the  freshening  life  which  God 
pours  into  souls  which  strive  to  be  in  harmony 
with  him  ;  and  then,  with  the  same  vitalizing  im- 
agination, he  pictured  the  bliss  of  beings  that,  even 
on  this  earth,  anticipate  the  "  beatitude  past  utter- 
ance "  of  the  heavenly  state,  by  receiving  through 
their  senses,  through  their  intellects,  through  their 
hearts,  through  their  souls,  the  messages  which 
the  Divine  Spirit  sends  to  them,  not  only  in  the 


Thomas  Starr  King,  xxxi 

words  of  the  Bible,  but  in  the  hues,  sounds,  and 
forms  of  the  visible  universe  He  has  created.  This 
was  the  dominant  tone  of  his  preaching  ;  but  he 
was  also  ever  ready  to  defend,  by  argument  and 
by  ingenious  interpretation  of  Scripture  texts  and 
the  facts  of  ecclesiastical  history,  the  reasonable- 
ness and  duty  of  forming  such  congregations  of 
Christian  worshippers  as  the  one  he  specially  ad- 
dressed, —  a  congregation  which  stood  as  a  rep- 
resentative and  result  of  the  Unitarian  and  the 
Universalist  revolt  against  the  dogmas  of  the  large 
majority  of  Christian  churches.  As  a  theological 
controversialist,  however,  he  was  more  comprehen- 
sive than  the  great  body  of  the  denominational 
ministers  with  whose  doctrines  he  agreed.  He 
was  tolerant  of  dogmas  which  he  could  not  ac- 
cept, because  he  tried  to  understand  what  he  criti- 
cised. His  first  question,  when  he  prepared  to 
assail  an  "  orthodox "  doctrine,  was  this  :  **  Out 
of  what  needs  or  experiences  of  human  nature 
did  this  dogma  spring  ?  "  There  is  a  latent  mod- 
esty observable  under  his  most  vehement  affirma- 
tions of  the  validity  of  his  own  conceptions  of 
theological  truth.-  At  least,  he  always  attempted 
to  account  for  the  origin  of  the  beliefs  he  aimed 
to  overthrow. 

Perhaps  his  full  effectiveness  as  a  pastor  was 
somewhat  impaired  by  the  circumstances  which 
impelled  him  to  become  a  lecturer  before  lyceums. 
His  popularity  as  a  lecturer  was  very  great ;  his 
lectures  extended  his  real  parish  east  from  Boston 


xxxii  Memoir  of 

to  Bangor,  and  west  from  Boston  to  Chicago ; 
but  he  lectured  at  the  period  when  a  fee  of  ten  or 
fifteen  or  twenty-five  dollars  was  considered  an 
adequate  remuneration  for  a  discourse  delivered 
within  twenty  miles  of  Boston,  and  a  fee  of  fifty 
dollars  for  one  delivered  in  Albany,  Syracuse,  or 
Buffalo.  The  result  was,  that,  though  he  labored 
hard  and  was  warmly  applauded,  he  received  dur- 
ing a  whole  season  less  than  lecturers  of  his  high 
rank  now  sometimes  receive  in  a  month.  He 
began  with  a  lecture  on  "  Goethe."  During  the 
whole  term  of  his  settlement  over  Hollis  Street 
Church  he  was  overwhelmed  with  invitations. 
His  lecture  on  "  Substance  and  Show "  almost 
equalled  in  popularity  that  of  Wendell  Phillips  on 
"The  Lost  Arts."  The  subjects  he  afterwards 
selected,  such  as  "  Socrates,"  "  Sight  and  Insight," 
"The  Laws  of  Disorder,"  obtained  an  almost 
equal  reputation.  But  lecturing,  though  it  may 
seem  to  be  the  mere  amusement  of  the  leisure  of 
a  professional  man,  is,  when  followed  up  night 
after  night,  a  terrible  drain  on  the  physical  vitality 
of  the  most  robust  constitutions.  The  addition 
to  Mr.  King's  income  was  comparatively  small, 
amounting  perhaps  to  fifteen  hundred  dollars  an- 
nually, or  about  a  fourth  of  what  a  lecturer  of 
equal  popularity  would  receive  now.  This  sum 
was  gained  at  the  expense  of  deducting  many 
years  from  his  invaluable  life.  The  mere  speak- 
ing was  the  least  part  of  the  exhausting  labor 
The  journeying  from  place  to  place  j  the  passage 


Thomas  Starr  King,  xxxiii 

from  lecture-rooms  stifiingly  hot  to  sleeping-rooms 
bitterly  cold ;  the  loss  of  appetite  or  the  absence 
of  the  proper  food  to  gratify  it;  the  inevitable 
coughs  and  colds  resulting  from  necessary  expos-  • 
ure ;  the  disturbance  of  the  whole  system  arising 
from  the  breaking-up  of  all  the  habits  of  ordinary 
life ;  the  long,  vacant  days  in  the  cars,  with  the 
head  in  the  torrid  and  the  feet  in  the  frigid  zone; 
the  constant  fret  and  anxiety  lest  something  might 
be  going  wrong  in  his  home  or  his  parish,  and 
he  a  hundred  or  a  thousand  miles  away,  —  these 
wore  on  a  frame  too  delicately  organized  to  stand 
such  a  strain  on  it  without  injury.  But  he  knew 
that  life  was  not  given  to  him  for  the  purpose  of 
spending  it  even  in  enjoyments  which  are  inno- 
cent and  artistic  ;  and  his  cheery  temperament 
converted  drudgery  itself  into  a  kind  of  delight. 
As  he  was  ever  ready  to  lay  down  his  life  when 
the  occasion  demanded  the  sacrifice,  so  he  was  as 
ready  to  wear  it  out,  at  the  call  of  duty,  by  the 
slow  suicide  of  over-work. 

The  summer  vacations  of  Mr.  King  were  spent 
either  at  Pigeon  Cove,  Cape  Ann,  or  in  some  vil- 
lage in  the  White  Mountains.  After  comparing, 
in  alternate  seasons,  the  sea-shore  with  the  moun- 
tains, he  at  last  decided  for  the  latter  as  on  the 
whole  the  more  conducive  to  his  health,  both  of 
mind  and  body.  His  usual  summer  residence 
was  at  Gorham,  N.  H.  That  village  appeared  to 
him  a  good  place  to  reside  in,  and  at  the  same 
time  furnished  an  excellent  point  from  which  to 


xxxiv  Memoir  of 

make  excursions  into  every  valley  and  up  every 
height  of  the  whole  mountain  region.  A  series 
of  Letters  to  the  *'  Boston  Transcript,"  edited  by 
his  friend  and  parishioner  Mr.  Daniel  N.  Haskell, 
ended  in  becoming  the  foundation  of  his  pictur- 
esque volume,  published  in  1859,  on  "The  White 
Hills."  As  this  was  the  best  of  guidebooks,  and 
at  the  same  time  a  book  which  supplied  visitors 
with  all  the  emotions  they  ought  to  feel  and  all 
the  imaginations  they  ought  to  shape,  in  viewing 
magnificent  scenery,  it  at  once  became  popular. 
It  is  still  considered  the  most  inspiring  companion 
which  a  person  of  taste,  feeling,  and  capacity  for 
enthusiasm  can  take  with  him  in  exploring  **  the 
Switzerland  of  New  England." 

Even  the  book  on  the  "  White  Hills,"  however, 
abounding  as  it  does  in  scenes  of  description  which 
Ruskin  might  be  willing  to  indorse  for  their  truth 
to  fact  and  truth  to  feeling,  does  not  do  full  justice 
to  Mr.  King's  experiences  as  a  tourist.  His  eye 
for  character  was  as  keen  as  his  eye  for  scenery ; 
and  he  could  not  be  a  week  in  any  remote  village 
before  all  its  "  originals  "  flocked  to  him,  and  were 
gently  and  benign  an  tly  tempted  to  unveil  their 
natures  to  his  sympathetic  humor.  He  accord- 
ingly brought  back  from  every  vacation  memories 
of  a  score  of  new  characters,  which,  as  he  repro- 
duced them  in  all  their  mental  and  moral  pro- 
cesses, and  in  all  their  peculiar  ways  of  individ- 
ualizing the  Yankee  dialect,  were  recognized  by 
his  friends  as   little   masterpieces   of  humorous 


Thomas  Starr  King,  xxxv 

characterization.  Indeed,  if  rightly  disposed  in 
an  appropriate  plot,  they  might  have  made  the 
fortune  of  an  American  novel  or  comedy,  solidly 
true  as  they  were  to  our  rustic  or  seafaring  life. 
Nothing  delighted  him  more  than  to  come  in  di- 
rect contact  with  persons  who  had  been  all  their 
days  far  away  from  the  ordinary  ministrations  of 
religion,  and  who  had  hewn  their  maxims  of  eth- 
ics and  metaphysics,  of  humanity  and  theology, 
out  of  their  rude  personal  experiences  in  forcing 
a  churlish  soil  to  yield  its  reluctant  harvest  of 
grain,  or  in  coaxing  a  pitiless  ocean  to  yield  its 
ever-fluctuating  harvest  of  fish.  Such  men  has- 
tened to  King,  the  city  clergyman,  with  the  pur- 
pose at  first  of  chaffing  him  as  a  clerical  prig  ;  but 
his  beaming  face,  the  heartiness  with  which  he 
sympathized  with  their  hard  lot,  the  joyous  bursts 
of  laughter  with  which  he  welcomed  their  rough 
satires  on  his  profession,  and  the  charming  mod- 
esty with  which,  in  a  mountain  region,  he  received 
the  directions  of  an  experienced  woodman  who 
was  to  guide  him  through  an  unfrequented  forest 
up  the  side  of  a  lone  hill  infested  with  bears  and 
rattlesnakes,  and,  in  a  sea  excursion,  the  teachable 
spirit  in  which  he  submitted  to  the  dogmatism  of 
a  storm-tested  fisherman,  who  offered  to  lead  him 
safely  through  dangerous  channels,  enclosed  by 
frowning  rocks,  to  some  obscure  and  unvisited 
cove,  won  him  golden  opinions  from  the  rude 
companions  with  whom  he  associated.  The  usual 
compliment,  vouchsafed  by  these  primitive  wood- 


xxxvi  Memoir  of 

men  and  fishermen  to  enterprising  ministers  of 
the  Gospel  who  display  coolness  in  danger  and 
verve  in  all  contingencies,  was  given  to  King. 
"  He  's  a  parson,"  they  growled,  *'  and  yet  he  is  n't 
a  confounded  fool."  Soon,  however,  the  entire 
sympathy  he  displayed  with  their  work  and  worth, 
his  easy  withdrawal  of  all  claims  to  their  respect, 
founded  on  the  circumstance  that  he  happened  to 
be  a  clergyman,  and  the  admiration  he  cordially 
expressed  for  their  heroism  in  braving  all  dangers 
of  the  land  and  the  ocean,  led  them  soon  to  reveal 
to  him  the  inmost  feelings  of  their  hearts  and  the 
deepest  thoughts  of  their  minds  ;  and  they  did  it 
in  grotesque  phrases  which  indicated  that  words 
with  them  were  identical  with  things.  If,  for  ex- 
ample, a  drought  seemed  to  be  making  the  fields 
desolate,  the  literary  expression  of  King  in  noting 
the  occurrence  was  translated  by  some  old  farmer 
into  such  an  image  as  this  :  "  Wall,  the  spring 
was  rainy,  you  know,  and  the  ground  got  cold  and 
soggy.  For  the  last  week  or  two,  you  see,  God 
has  been  moving  his  flatiron  over  it,  and  it  '11  all 
come  right  in  the  end."  In  many  cases  King 
became  the  father  confessor  of  the  fishermen  or 
mountaineers  with  whom  he  mingled ;  and  in 
opening  their  hearts  to  him  they  forgot  he  was 
a  parson,  and  confided  in  him  simply  as  Starr 
King,  —  a  good  fellow,  who  appeared  to  feel  his 
inferiority  to  them  in  all  matters  relating  to  the 
practical  work  of  the  world,  and  who  was  to  be 
tolerated  as  a  person  who  would  learn  in  time  the 


Thomas  Starr  King.  xxxvii 

real  meaning  of  life.  The  pupil  of  these  rough 
instructors  was  meanwhile  searching  them  through 
and  through,  and  gathering  every  day  a  lesson  in 
the  varieties  of  human  nature,  and  the  difBculties 
which  the  thoroughly  natural  man,  who  has  organ- 
ized his  character  by  conflict  with  the  forces  of 
nature,  and  is  perfectly  contented  with  his  par- 
tial victory  over  them,  present  to  the  Christian 
preacher  who  would  introduce  into  squalid  homes 
where  God  rarely  enters,  the  hopes  and  joys  of  the 
Christian  faith,  —  homes  which  he  still  knows  to 
be  the  scene  where  harsh  duties  are  rigidly  per- 
formed and  coarse  charities  freely  dispensed. 

The  natural  consequence  of  Mr.  King's  benefi- 
cent activity,  as  pastor,  preacher,  lecturer,  contro- 
versialist, and  man  of  letters,  was  to  give  him  a 
wide  celebrity,  not  confined  to  the  limits  of  his 
parish  or  his  sect,  but  extending  far  beyond  both. 
Many  of  the  Unitarian  societies  out  of  New  Eng- 
land may  be  classed  as  "  struggling ''  societies. 
They  are  in  continual  need  either  of  money  to 
support  struggling  and  straggling  ministers,  or, 
what  is  of  much  more  importance,  in  need  of 
ministers  with  sufficient  eloquence  and  magnetism 
to  organize  into  a  compact,  self-supporting  body 
the  scattered  "  liberal "  forces  of  the  communities 
into  which  they  are  considered  to  intrude.  Some 
of  the  leading  Unitarian  divines  regarded  Mr. 
King  as  a  man  not  only  capable  of  sustaining  a 
society  but  of  building  up  one ;  and  probably 
if  Dr.  Bellows,  who  early  discerned  Mr.  King's 


xxxviii  Memoir  of 

organizing  power,  could  have  had  his  way,  the 
pastor  of  Hollis  Street  Church  would  have  been 
despatched  from  place  to  place,  having  himself 
no  abiding  city,  as  a  missionary  of  the  Unitarian 
faith,  moving  from  every  town  where  he  had  estab- 
lished a  struggling  society  on  a  strong  foundation, 
to  some  other  town  where  there  was  a  society  almost 
at  the  last  gasp  in  its  desperate  struggle  for  exist- 
ence. Mr.  King  resisted  all  efforts  to  draw  him,  not 
only  to  such  fields  of  labor,  but  to  such  large  cities 
as  Brooklyn,  Cincinnati,  and  Chicago,  where  it  was 
at  different  times  supposed  the  cause  of  Unitari- 
anism  needed  his  powerful  support ;  but  the  press- 
ure brought  upon  him  to  undertake  the  charge 
of  the  depressed  church  at  San  Francisco  was, 
providentially,  too  strong  for  him  to  resist.  He 
was  convinced  that  it  was  his  duty  to  accept  the 
call.  The  members  of  his  Boston  church  and 
congregation,  while  recognizing  the  force  of  the 
reasons  which  prompted  his  resignation,  loved  him 
too  much  to  accept  it.  They  could  not  consent  to 
part  with  him  permanently,  and  therefore  granted 
him  a  vacation  of  fifteen  months,  with  the  under- 
standing that  the  society  would  have  no  "  settled  " 
minister  until  he  had  finally  assured  them  that  he 
could  never  return  to  that  pulpit  which  they  con- 
sidered his  theological  home.  On  Sunday,  the 
25th  of  March,  i860,  he  addressed  to  a  crowded 
church  his  solemn  and  tender  "  Words  at  Parting." 
The  editor  of  this  volume  was  present  on  the 
occasion ;   and  in  a  communication  to  a  Boston 


Tho7nas  Starr  King,  xxxix 

journal  endeavored  to  state  the  feelings  of  that 
large  number  of  Mr.  King's  friends  who  were  not 
members  of  his  society,  while  occasionally  listen- 
ing to  his  discourses.  They  would,  it  was  said, 
unanimously  testify  to  the  fact  that,  "  rapid  as  had 
been  the  growth  of  his  genius  as  a  fervid  and  brill- 
iant preacher,  it  has  been  fully  matched  by  a 
growth  as  rapid  in  his  attainments  as  a  theolo- 
gian ;  and  that  his  rhetoric,  opulent  as  it  was 
in  all  those  picturesque  images  and  vivid  phrases 
which  seize  upon  the  fancy,  was  none  the  less 
the  guarded  expression  of  a  large,  clear,  full,  and 
well-disciplined  mind.  They  could  say  that,  excel- 
lent as  were  his  powers  of  acquisition,  of  thought, 
and  of  speech,  there  was  still  something  more  ex- 
cellent in  the  genial,  loving,  cheerful  spirit  from 
which  his  powers  derived  their  best  life,  drew  their 
richest  inspiration,  and  received  their  noblest  im- 
pulse. They  could  point  to  a  long  service  as  a 
Christian  minister,  in  which  the  pulpit  had  never 
been  controlled  by  the  pews,  and  in  which  the 
pews  could  never  complain  that  any  opinions, 
however  unpalatable,  had  ever  been  tainted  by 
acrid  passions  unbecoming  a  Christian  minister  to 
feel.  They  could  bear  their  testimony  that  he 
had  always  been  bold  and  independent,  and  at 
the  same  time  been  free  from  the  wilfulness  and 
malignity  into  which  boldness  and  independence 
are  sometimes  stung  by  opposition.  They  could 
appeal  to  thousands  in  proof  of  the  assertion  that, 
though  in  charge  of  a  large  parish,  and  with  a  lee- 


xl  Memoir  of 

ture  parish  which  extended  from  Bangor  to  St. 
Louis,  he  still  seemed  to  have  time  for  every  good 
and  noble  work,  to  be  open  to  every  demand  of  mis- 
fortune, tender  to  every  pretension  of  weakness,  re- 
sponsive to  every  call  of  sympathy,  and  true  to  every 
obligation  of  friendship  j  and  they  will  all  indulge 
the  hope  that  California,  cordial  as  must  be  the 
welcome  she  extends  to  him,  will  still  not  be  able 
to  keep  him  long  from  Massachusetts."  I  quote 
these  forgotten  sentences  with  a  secret  satisfac- 
tion, because  they  remind  me  that  I  did  not  wait 
until  my  friend  was  dead  before  expressing  my 
earnest  recognition  of  his  admirable  talents  and 
virtues.  The  grave  has  no  ears  to  hear  the  words 
of  eulogy  spoken  over  the  coffined  remains  of 
what  in  life  represented  everything  that  was  good, 
true,  honorable,  and  just ;  yet  how  often  is  honest 
and  hearty  recognition  of  noble  souls  a  recogni- 
tion which  might  have  cheered  them  in  the  hard 
work  of  living  here,  postponed  to  the  day  when 
the  soul  has  disappeared  from  its  mortal  tenement, 
and  the  lifeless  body  alone  receives  the  praise 
which  should  have  been  proffered  to  the  living 
man ! 

On  the  day  before  he  sailed  from  New  York,  on 
the  nth  of  April,  i86^,  Mr.  King  was  specially 
honored  by  a  "Unitarian  Breakfast  Reception," 
at  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel.  There  were  three 
hundred  guests  seated  at  the  tables,  and  the  ven- 
erable poet,  William  Cullen  Bryant,  presided. 
The  speeches  were  all  that  could  be  desired,  as- 


Thomas  Starr  Kmg,  xli 

suring  the  preacher  that  he  carried  with  him  to 
San  Francisco  the  best  wishes  of  the  best  men  of 
the  denomination.  Two  short  sentences  in  the 
letter  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  F.  H.  Hedge,  one  of  the 
most  intimate  of  his  friends,  condense  the  spirit 
which  animated  the  whole  assembly.  "  King," 
he  wrote,  "  is  with  you  for  a  parting  word,  and 
your  fraternal  benediction  on  his  way.  Happy 
soul !  himself  a  benediction  wherever  he  goes, 
benignly  dispensing  the  graces  of  his  life  wher- 
ever he  carries  the  wisdom  of  his  word." 

He  appears  to  have  enjoyed  excellent  health 
on  his  voyage.  During  the  last  two  days  of  the 
passage  from  Panama  to  San  Francisco  the  sea 
was  very  rough.  On  Friday,  April  27,  while  the 
steamer  was  pitching  under  a  heavy  swell.  King 
wrote  the  sermon  which  he  intended  to  deliver 
on  the  approaching  Sunday.  He  began  to  write 
at  eleven  in  the  morning,  and  finished  the  dis- 
course at  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening.  The 
manuscript  is  before  me  as  I  write ;  and  there  is 
no  evidence  that  the  rolling  of  the  steamer,  as  it 
ploughed  through  the  huge  Pacific  waves,  inter- 
fered any  more  with  the  certainty  of  his  hand  in 
giving  distinctness  to  every  letter  of  every  word, 
than  it  interfered  to  disturb  the  sweet  mental  and 
moral  calm  of  the  religious  mood  which  marks 
every  sentence  of  the  composition.  He  arrived 
at  San  Francisco  in  the  afternoon  of  the  next 
day,  Saturday,  April  28,  i860.  No  preparation 
had  been  made  for  a  service  at  the  Unitarian 


xlii  Memoir  of 

Church  ;  but  he  insisted  on  preaching.  A  notice 
was  accordingly  inserted  in  a  newspaper  pub- 
lished on  Sunday  morning,  and  the  building  was 
thronged  with  eager  and  curious  Hsteners.  The 
sermon  was  by  no  means  one  that  did  justice  to 
his  powers;  but  it  was  so  comprehensive  in  spirit, 
and  so  tolerant  and  generous  in  tone,  —  the  char- 
acter and  soul  of  the  man  were  so  genially  ex- 
pressed in  it,  —  that  every  thoughtful  hearer  felt 
that  a  new  spiritual  force  was  added  to  the  com- 
munity. He  fascinated  his  auditors  from  the  first ; 
and  as,  Sunday  after  Sunday,  he  poured  forth  his 
persuasive,  kindly,  and  manly  eloquence  on  the 
highest  themes  of  spiritual  and  practical  religion, 
the  pews  were  soon  occupied  by  permanent  mem- 
bers of  the  society,  and  a  Unitarian  church  was 
rapidly  organized,  which  in  the  course  of  a  year 
became  one  of  the  most  prominent  and  most  effi- 
cient of  the  ecclesiastical  organizations  of  the 
city  and  the  State.  It  was  not  long  before  the 
project  of  a  new  edifice  was  started,  large  enough 
to  accommodate  all  the  disappointed  applicants 
for  pews  in  the  old  one.  The  lot  was  purchased ; 
the  plan  of  a  costly  and  beautiful  edifice  was  ap- 
proved ;  and  on  the  3d  of  December,  1862,  its 
corner-stone  was  laid.  The  pastor  by  this  time 
was  recognized  as  the  foremost  pulpit  orator  of 
the  State.  It  is  to  be  said,  however,  that  the 
majority  of  the  sermons  which  gave  him  this 
prominence  had  been  written  for  his  society  in 
Hollis    Street.      Of    the    twenty-two    discourses 


Thomas  Starr  King,  xliii 

printed  in  this  volume  sixteen  were  first  preached 
in  Boston,  and  most  of  these  were  twice  repeated 
in  San  Francisco. 

But  his  influence  was  not  confined  to  those  who 
sympathized  with  his  theological  opinions.  As 
a  lecturer  he  was  welcomed  everywhere  and  by 
everybody.  His  knowledge,  wit,  humor,  fancy, 
the  fervor  of  soul  which  animated  his  fertile  and 
fertilizing  thought,  and  the  magnetic  force  of  his 
character,  gave  to  his  lectures  the  rare  quality  of 
being  universally  attractive,  —  an  attractiveness 
felt  as  much  by  the  rough  miner  as  by  the  most 
cultivated  inhabitant  of  San  Francisco  or  Sacra- 
mento. 

The  great  occasion,  however,  which  raised  Mr. 
King  to  the  position  of  the  foremost  citizen  of 
California,  was  the  outbreak  of  the  Rebellion. 
As  early  as  February,  1861,  he  commenced  his 
assaults  on  secession  by  a  lecture  on  "  Washing- 
ton " ;  this  was  followed  in  March  by  one  on 
"  Daniel  Webster  and  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  " ;  and  in  April  by  one  on  "  Lex- 
ington and  Concord.''  These  were  delivered  in 
various  parts  of  the  State,  and  were  received  with 
immense  enthusiasm.  On  the  19th  of  May  he 
,  announced  to  his  church  what  course  he  should 
pursue,  both  as  a  clergyman  and  as  a  citizen,  as 
long  as  the  war  lasted.  His  topic  was  "  The 
Great  Uprising."  The  whole  sermon  indicates 
"  a  great  uprising "  of  King's  latent  capacity 
for  moral  and  Christian  indignation,  for  righteous 


xliv  Memoir  of 

wrath.  After  emphatically  declaring  that  it  is 
the  duty  of  a  Christian  minister  to  feel  no  per- 
sonal animosity  to  any  human  being,  he  distin- 
guishes between  a  wrong  done  to  himself  and  a 
wrong  done  to  the  community.  He  illustrates 
the  distinction  in  this  reference  to  the  President 
of  the  Confederate  States  :  "  He  is  a  representa- 
tive to  my  soul  and  conscience  of  a  force  of  evil. 
His  cause  is  pollution  and  a  horror.  His  banner 
is  a  black  flag.  I  could  pray  for  him  as  one  man, 
a  brother  man,  in  his  private,  affectional,  and 
spiritual  relations  to  Heaven.  But  as  President 
of  the  seceding  States,  head  of  brigand  forces, 
organic  representative  of  the  powers  of  destruc- 
tion within  our  country, — pray  for  him!  —  as 
soon  as  for  antichrist !  Never  ! "  It  would,  he 
added,  be  as  incongruous  to  pray  for  him  as  he 
prayed  for  Abraham  Lincoln,  as  it  would  be  for 
an  English  churchman,  during  the  Sepoy  rebel- 
lion, to  have  prayed  for  Queen  Victoria  and  Nina 
Sahib  in  the  same  breath.  The  close  of  his  ser- 
mon solemnly  echoed  the  tone  that  rang  through 
the  paragraphs  preceding  it ;  "  God  bless  the  Pres- 
ident of  the  United  States,  and  all  w4io  serve  w^ith 
him  the  cause  of  a  common  country !  God  grant 
the  blessing  of  repentance  and  return  to  allegiance 
to  all  our  enemies,  even  the  traitors  in  their  high 
places  !  God  preserve  from  defeat  and  disgrace 
the  sacred  flag  of  our  fathers !  God  give  us  all 
the  spirit  of  service  and  sacrifice  in  a  righteous 
cause !     Amen  ! " 


Thomas  Starr  King,  xlv 

To  a  friend  in  Boston  he  wrote  :  "  What  a  year 
to  hve  in  !  worth  all  other  times  ever  known  in 
our  history  or  in  any  other." 

The  soul  of  this  Christian  patriot  seemed  to 
kindle  into  an  ever-increasing  blaze  with  the  fuel 
which  the  events  of  the  war  supplied,  and  it  con- 
stantly broadened  as  it  blazed.  Indeed,  the  only 
question  started  by  his  admiring  friends  was  this  : 
How  long  will  this  unwearied  inward  fire  continue 
before  it  begins  to  consume  the  frail  body  which 
contains  it  ? 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  King^s  whole  na- 
ture grew  larger  during  his  California  experience ; 
and,  indeed,  every  "Bostonian  Californian"  insists 
that  we  who  heard  him  only  in  New  England  have 
not  the  faintest  idea  of  what  King  became  after 
he  had  passed  through  the  Golden  Gate.  In 
calmly  reading  the  scores  of  patriotic  sermons, 
lectures,  and  addresses  which  he  wrote  and  deliv- 
ered in  California,  I  think  I  understand  what  is 
meant  by  this  statement.  His  personality  cer- 
tainly became  stronger,  more  confident,  more 
energetic,  and,  on  proper  occasions,  more  reso- 
lute and  defiant.  He  took  his  place  in  the  new 
community  as  a  self-reliant,  individual  power,  de- 
termined to  impress  his  thoughts  and  sentiments 
on  all  who  listened  to  him  ;  and  he  was  relieved 
from  that  pressure  on  spiritual  self-assertion  in 
the  championship  of  noble  causes,  which  weighs 
like  an  incubus  on  every  latent  capacity  for  lead- 
ership in  such  an  organized  society  as  that  of  the 


xlvi  Memoir  of 

old  city  he  had  left.  It  would  have  been  impos- 
sible for  King  to  develop  in  Boston  the  domi- 
nant individuality,  the  fearless  free  spirit,  he  ex- 
hibited in  San  Francisco.  Any  attempt  of  his  to 
assume  the  position  of  a  leader  of  pubHc  opinion 
in  Boston  would  have  been  crushed  by  the  mere 
superciliousness  of  the  educated  and  fashionable 
classes.  All  that  would  be  necessary  to  teach 
him  his  subordinate  position  would  have  been 
a  few  blandly  ironical  sneers,  a  little  lifting  of 
the  eyebrows,  a  slight  shrugging  of  the  shoulders, 
and,  in  the  clubs,  an  expression  of  apathetic  won- 
der as  to  who  was  the  Unitarian  parson  who 
talked  in  such  "tair*  language.  But  in  a  new  city 
like  San  Francisco,  in  a  new  State  like  California, 
composed  of  heterogeneous  elements  of  popula- 
tion all  in  a  fluid  condition,  a  man  of  mark  in- 
stantly made  his  mark.  The  unorganized  mate- 
rials of  goodness  and  justice  flocked  to  such  a 
man  as  King  as  to  a  centre  of  goodness  and  jus- 
tice. The  division  line  was  not  run  between  the 
cultured  and  the  uneducated  classes,  but  between 
well-meaning  men  and  ill-meaning  vagabonds  and 
ruffians ;  and  such  a  nature  as  King's,  when  the 
Rebellion  broke  out,  became  at  once  a  potent 
organizing  force,  uniting  the  coarsest-mannered 
delver  in  the  mines,  who  had  a  heart  and  a  con- 
science, with  the  most  polite  and  cultivated  mer- 
chant in  San  Francisco  and  Sacramento.  The 
old  Greek  philosopher,  Heraclitus,  defined  the 
universe  as  "  a  Becoming.'*     The  old  cities  of  the 


Thomas  Starr  King,  xlvii 

United  States  have  "Become.'*  California,  when 
King  entered  it,  was  in  a  state  of  flux,  —  was 
"  becoming.'*'  He  stamped  his  mind,  as  far  as  he 
could,  on  the  fluent  mass,  and  it  took  more  or 
less  the  shape  which  he  strove  to  impress  upon  it. 
As  far  as  regards  the  keeping  of  California  loyal 
to  the  Union  during  the  Civil  War,  he  ranks  at 
least  in  the  first  file  of  its  eminent  citizens.  His 
reputation  was  not  confined  to  the  Pacific  coast, 
but  extended  over  the  whole  country;  and  the 
name  of  Starr  King  was  mentioned  with  admira- 
tion and  respect  wherever  self-devoted  patriotism 
was  honored. 

There  is  hardly  space  here  to  enumerate  even 
the  titles  of  the  sermons  and  political  addresses 
which  bear  testimony  to  his  efficient  zeal  for  the 
cause  of  constitutional  American  liberty.  His 
thanksgiving  sermons  for  Union  victories  are  not 
more  notable  than  the  sermons  in  which  he  urged 
his  parishioners  to  keep  their  hearts  strong  under 
Union  defeats.  The  titles  of  a  few  of  his  dis- 
courses will  indicate  the  character  of  their  teach- 
ing :  "  The  Choice  between  Barabbas  and  Jesus," 
"  The  Fall  of  Dagon  before  the  Ark,"  "  The  Trea- 
son of  Judas  Iscariot,'*  "  The  Pilgrim  Coloniza- 
tion," "  Secession  in  Palestine,"  "  The  New  Perils 
of  the  Nation  "  (November,  1862),  and  "  The  Na- 
tion's New  Year  '*  (1863).  As  to  his  political  ad- 
dresses from  the  platform,  they  are  too  numerous 
to  be  recorded,  but  I  will  give  the  titles  of  a  few 
of  those  which  were  most  elaborately  prepared  ; 


xlviii  Memoir  of 

"The  Confederate  States,  Old  and  New  (1776, 
1861),"  "The  Two  Declarations  of  Independence 
(1776,  1861)/'  "Rebellion  Pictures  from  Paradise 
Lost,"  "Peace,  and  what  we  must  pay  for  it/' 
"  The  New  Nation  to  issue  from  the  War  "  (1862), 
and  "American  Nationality."  In  all  these  he 
struck  at  the  vital  fact  of  slavery  as  the  disturbing 
element  in  our  nationality,  and  was  confident  that 
it  couldvnot  survive  the  success  of  the  war.  In  a 
sermon  in  March,  1863,  he  said  :  "  We  must  give 
up  the  idea  that  our  cannon,  seven  times  multi- 
plied, can  avail,  unless  a  principle  loads  and  fires 
them." 

In  all  his  political  addresses  he  proved  that  he 
had  penetrated  into  the  inmost  secret  of  the  art 
of  influencing  a  multitude.  His  method  was  to 
give  a  pointed,  compact,  rapid  statement  of  the 
opinion  of  his  opponents,  and  then  answer  it  with 
an  equally  swift,  condensed,  and  pointed  rejoinder. 
A  volume  might  be  made  up  from  his  political 
sermons  and  orations  which  would  be  regarded  as 
an  excellent  manual  for  new  beginners  who  are 
desirous  of  learning  the  right  method  of  produ- 
cing popular  effects.  On  one  occasion,  when  every 
seat  in  the  building  where  he  spoke  was  occupied, 
the  aisles  and  entry  packed,  and  a  compact  mass 
of  people  on  the  sidewalk,  a  tall  rough  miner  on 
the  extreme  edge  of  the  crowd,  who  was  listening 
in  an  ecstasy  of  delight,  nudged  his  shorter  com- 
panion and  exclaimed :  "  I  say,  Jim,  stand  on 
your  toes  and  get  a  sight  of  him !  why,  the  boy  is 


Thomas  Starr  King,  xlix 

taking  every  trick !  "  This  was  one  of  the  occa- 
sions where  he  displayed  his  power  of  "  replica- 
tion prompt  and  reason  strong,"  after  giving  a 
lucid  statement  of  opinions  adverse  to  his  own. 
His  felicity  in  "taking  every  trick"  in  tl;ie  argu- 
mentative game  extended  to  every  contrivance  by 
which  wit  retorts  on  wit  and  ingenious  fancy  on 
arrogant  assertion.  The  roughest  example  of  this 
that  I  can  find,  in  some  fifty  of  his  speeches,  oc- 
curs in  his  Fourth  of  July  Oration  at  Stockton,  in 
1862,  on  "The  New  Nation  to  issue  from  the 
War."  After  denouncing  the  crime  implied  in  the 
attempt  to  murder  a  nation,  he  adds ;  "  Mr.  Toombs 
said  in  Washington,  at  a  dinner-party  a  little  over  a 
year  ago,  that  he  wanted  it  carved  over  his  grave  : 
*Here  lies  the  man  who  destroyed  the  United 
States  Government  and  its  Capitol.'  He  cannot 
be  literally  gratified.  But  he  may  come  so  near 
his  wish  as  this,  that  it  shall  be  written  over  his 
gallows,  as  over  every  one  of  a  score  of  his  fellow- 
felons  :  *  Here  swings  the  man  who  attempted 
murder  on  the  largest  scale  that  was  ever  planned 
in  history  ! '  " 

Mr.  King  was  not  content  merely  to  proclaim 
and  defend  the  general  principles  of  loyalty  to 
the  threatened  nation.  He  resolutely  opposed 
every  California  politician  whom  he  considered  to 
be  lukewarm,  craven,  or  false  in  respect  to  the 
supreme  duty  of  standing  by  the  government  in  its 
years  of  peril ;  and  ten  days  before  the  election 
of  October,  1863,  he  preached  in  his  church  on 


1  Memoir  of 

the  "Moral  Aspect  of  the  Coming  Election," 
stigmatizing  the  Rebellion  as  simply  ^' the  largest 
mob  ever  seen  in  history,"  and  urging  his  listeners 
to  vote  Copperheadism  relentlessly  down  in  every 
place  where  it  presented  a  candidate.  In  this 
close  grapple  with  obnoxious  politicians  he  of 
course  made  some  honest  and  many  unscrupulous 
enemies.  As  he  spoke  from  political  platforms  in 
all  parts  of  the  State,  he  met  occasionally  with 
turbulent  opposition.  Indeed,  effort  after  effort 
was  made  to  put  him  down.  Pistols  were  some- 
times levelled,  sometimes  snapped,  at  him,  but  the 
ruffians  soon  found  that  he  paid  as  little  heed  to 
revolvers  as  an  old  Garrisonian  abolitionist  did  to 
unsavory  missiles  hurled  at  his  head.  There  is 
no  case  mentioned  in  which  the  orator  did  not 
triumph  over  every  element  of  brutal  opposition 
in  the  assemblages  he  addressed.  As  the  wonder- 
ing and  admiring  miner  said,  in  contrasting  his 
small,  frail  body  with  his  quick  mind  and  pene- 
trating, resonant  voice,  "  the  boy  took  every  trick." 
The  honest,  hard-fisted,  good-hearted  roughs  were 
delighted  with  his  manliness  ;  and  the  malignant, 
scampish  roughs  were  compelled  to  slink  away 
the  moment  they  attempted  to  commit  any  out- 
rage on  his  person. 

Meanwhile  his  devotion  to  the  task  of  building 
up  his  society  seems  hardly  to  have  been  inter- 
rupted by  his  public  performances.  He  wrote  a 
series  of  eight  able  Sunday  evening  lectures  on 
the  controverted  points  between  Unitarians  and 


Thomas  Starr  King,  Ii 

their  theological  opponents.  For  the  new  church 
of  his  society  he  contributed  a  thousand  dollars 
out  of  his  salary  ;  and,  in  addition,  wrote  a  series 
of  six  lectures  on  the  leading  American  poets, 
Bryant,  Longfellow,  Holmes,  Whittier,  and  Lowell, 
in  order  to  obtain  the  means  (thirty-five  hundred 
dollars)  of  purchasing  an  organ,  which  was  his  gift 
to  the  church.  He  was  always  ready  to  speak  in  aid 
of  any  of  the  benevolent  associations  of  the  city, 
and  a  dozen  of  such  addresses,  elaborately  written 
out,  remain  among  his  manuscripts.  In  Novem- 
ber, 1861,  he  wrote  a  letter  to  the  standing  com- 
mittee of  the  Hollis  Street  Society,  resigning  his 
office  as  pastor  of  that  parish,  on  the  ground  that 
duty  to  his  new  society  would  keep  him  at  least  a 
year  longer  in  California.  Of  course  his  toils 
were  telling  terribly  on  his  health.  "  I  should  be 
broken  down,''  he  wrote  to  an  Eastern  friend,  "  if  I 

had  time  to  think  of  how  I  feel,  but  I  don't 

Leisure  and  rest,  I  fear,  will  not  come  to  me  this 
side  of  the  grave."  One  of  the  noblest  results 
of  his  labors  was  the  influence  he  exerted  in 
raising  many  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars 
for  the  Sanitary  Commission,  for  which  he  lec- 
tured, not  only  in  California  and  Oregon,  but 
in  Nevada  and  Washington.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  he  was  the  most  electric  speaker  on 
the  Pacific  coast,  for  he  could  not  only  open  hearts 
but  open  purses,  and  money  flowed  in  a  golden 
stream  wherever  his  appeal  for  charity  was  heard. 
The  new  church  of  his  society  was  completed 


lii  Memoir  of 

towards  the  end  of  the  year  1863,  and  on  January 
10,  1864,  he  preached  in  it  for  the  first  time.  The 
sermon  is  the  last  of  those  printed  in  the  present 
volume.  The  church  contained  two  hundred  and 
eighteen  pews,  which  were  rented,  for  the  first 
year,  for  twenty  thousand  dollars.  The  "plate 
collections  "  were  estimated  at  five  thousand  dol- 
lars. But  there  was  a  debt  on  the  building,  and 
the  pastor  was  haunted  to  the  day  of  his  death 
by  the  spectre  of  this  debt,  as  though  it  were  a 
pecuniary  obligation  of  his  own. 

But  the  end  of  this  bright  and  beneficent  career 
was  near  at  hand.  Mr.  King  had  very  properly 
felt  that  it  would  be  cow^ardly  to  spare  his  own 
life  while  he  was  constantly  inciting  others  to  sac- 
rifice theirs.  From  the  moment  of  the  breaking 
out  of  the  Civil  War  he  enlisted  as  one  of  the  vol- 
unteers in  the  army  of  the  nation.  He  wore  out 
his  life  in  the  pulpit  and  on  the  platform,  as  those 
who  were  kindled  by  his  eloquence  might  have 
wasted  away  their  lives  in  unhealthy  camps  or 
thrown  them  away  on  battle-fields.  He  was  early 
impressed  with  the  idea  that  he  should  die  before 
he  arrived  at  the  age  of  forty ;  and  his  exhausting 
career  in  California  made  his  prediction  nearly  true. 
His  physical  condition  w^as  such  that  it  was  impos- 
sible for  him  to  resist  the  attack  of  any  serious  dis- 
ease. O  n  Sunday,  the  2 1  st  of  February,  he  preached 
his  last  sermon  from  the  text,  "  Behold  I  stand  at 
the  door  and  knock."  This  was  a  favorite  dis- 
course of  his,  written  as  long  ago  as   1849.     It 


Thomas  Starr  King,  liii 

was  twice  delivered  in  Boston  and  twice  repeated 
in  San  Francisco.  On  Friday,  February  26,  he 
complained  of  suffering  from  a  sore  throat,  and 
said  that  he  felt  like  "  a  sponge  squeezed  dry." 
His  illness  became  so  severe  as  to  prevent  him 
from  preaching  on  the  ensuing  Sunday.  His  dis- 
ease was  diphtheria,  which  rapidly  did  its  work  on 
his  worn-out  frame.  On  Friday,  the  4th  of  March, 
his  physician  was  compelled  to  tell  him,  in  answer 
to  his  earnest  question,  that  he  feared  he  could 
not  live  half  an  hour  longer.  He  received  this 
death-sentence  with  the  utmost  calmness,  and  pro- 
ceeded at  once  to  dictate  his  will,  —  a  will  singu- 
larly considerate  to  all  who  depended  upon  him, 
and  thoroughly  Christian  in  temper  and  tone.  He 
was  raised  from  his  bed,  and,  with  a  book  for  a 
desk,  signed  it  with  a  steady  hand.  By  his  bed- 
side were  many  friends,  to  whom  he  smilingly  bade 
good-by.  "I  feel,"  he  said,  "all  the  privileges 
and  greatness  of  the  future."  "  I  see,"  he  again 
remarked,  "  a  great  future  before  me.  It  already 
looks  grand,  beautiful.  I  am  passing  away  fast. 
My  feelings  are  strange."  He  was  asked  if  he 
had  any  special  message  for  his  Eastern  friends. 
"  Tell  them,"  he  replied,  "  I  went  lovingly,  trust- 
fully, peacefully"  ;  and  then  added,  "  To-day  is  the 
4th  of  March ;  sad  news  will  go  over  the  wires 
to-day."  He  then  implored  Mr.  Swain,  the  chair- 
man of  the  parish  committee,  to  see  to  it  that  the 
debt  of  the  church  was  paid.  "  Let  the  church 
free  from  debt  be  my  monument  j  I  want  no  bet- 


liv  Memoir  of 

ter.  Tell  them  these  were  my  last  words,  and  say 
good-by  to  all  of  them  for  me."  He  was  then 
asked  :  "Are  you  happy?"  "Yes,"  he  answered, 
"  happy,  resigned,  trustful/'  Then  he  repeated 
the  Twenty-third  Psalm,  "  The  Lord  is  my  Shep- 
herd," emphasizing  the  verse,  "  Yea,  though  I 
walk  through  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death, 
I  will  fear  no  evil ;  for  Thou  art  with  me  ;  Thy 
rod  and  Thy  staff  shall  comfort  me."  Breathing 
more  and  more  slowly,  his  life  gradually  ebbed 
away  without  a  struggle  or  a  pang.*  Four  years 
before  he  had  passed  through  the  Golden  Gate 
of  San  Francisco  to  consecrate  his  life,  as  a  Chris- 
tian patriot,  to  the  service  of  his  country  and  his 
God  j  he  now  passed  through  another  Golden  Gate, 
which  opened  to  him  a  region  laid  down  in  the 
charts  of  no  geographer,  but  which,  in  ecstatic  vis- 
ion, had  long  been  visible  to  the  eye  of  his  soul. 

The  funeral  of  Mr.  King  was  a  touching  cere- 
mony, for  it  expressed  the  genuine  grief  of  a 
great  city  at  the  departure  of  its  greatest  citizen. 
There  is  always  a  tendency,  in  the  public  funeral 
of  an  eminent  man,  to  convert  the  occasion  into 
a  mere  imposing  spectacle  for  crowds  to  gaze  at ; 
"but  in  this  instance  the  formalities  were  identical 
with  the  realities  of  sorrow.  It  was  universally  felt 
that  a  vital  force,  pledged  to  the  cause  of  all  that 
was  noble,  generous,  and  good,  and  which  could 
not  be  replaced,  had  been  withdrawn  in  the  full 

*  See  Richard  Frothingham's  volume,  "  A  Tribute  to  Thomas 
Starr  King." 


Thomas  Starr  King,  Iv 

sweep  of  its  beneficent  activity.  To  the  throngs 
of  persons  who  hastened  to  take  a  last  look  at 
the  beloved  pastor  or  friend,  there  w^as  some- 
thing indescribably  pathetic  in  the  placid  smile 
on  the  dead  face,  —  the  smile  which  was  on  the 
features  when  death  approached,  and  which  death 
itself  had  not  power  to  efface.  The  flags  at  half- 
mast  all  over  the  city  and  in  the  shipping  in  the 
harbor ;  the  tolling  bells ;  the  melancholy  minute- 
guns  fired  by  direction  of  the  authorities  at  Wash- 
ington ;  the  crowd  of  citizens,  which  not  only  filled 
the  church  but  occupied,  in  a  dense  mass,  every 
avenue  to  it,  —  all  attested  the  grief  of  a  commu- 
nity which  really  felt  itself  bereaved.  That  silent, 
respectful  sorrow,  hushing  for  the  time  the  noise 
of  traflfic,  and  indicating  that  thousands  of  people 
who  were  utterly  unknown  to  him  mourned  his 
death  as  though  they  had  lost  a  personal  friend, 
was  the  most  fitting  tribute  that  could  have  been 
rendered  to  Mr.  King's  genius  and  virtues. 

The  present  collection  of  Mr.  King's  sermons 
is  selected  from  a  very  large  number,  and  repre- 
sents the  average  excellence  of  his  weekly  dis- 
courses. It  is  intended  that  this  volume  shall  be 
succeeded  by  one  containing  the  ablest  and  most 
brilliant  of  his  popular  lectures  before  lyceums. 
In  case,  however,  the  specimens  of  his  pulpit  elo- 
quence now  presented  to  the  public  should  meet 
with  a  suitable  recognition,  it  is  proposed  to  follow 
them  up  with  another  volume,  devoted  to  similar 


Ivi  Memoir  of 

vital  truths  of  experimental  religion  ;  and  still 
another  volume,  illustrating  the  ample  learning, 
keen  analysis,  and  disciplined  dialectical  power, 
which  he  brought  to  the  discussion  of  those  con- 
troverted points  of  theology  in  which  the  opin- 
ions of  Unitarian  and  Universalist  scholars  and 
divines  are  most  directly  brought  into  contact 
and  conflict  with  the  opinions  of  their  *' ortho- 
dox "  opponents.  In  looking  over  the  yet  un- 
published writings  of  Mr.  King,  the  present  editor 
has  been  led  to  the  conclusion  that,  in  fervid  per- 
sonal religious  experience  as  well  as  in  theologi- 
cal knowledge  and  intellectual  power,  his  position 
is  properly  in  the  front  rank  of  liberal  divines 
and  controversialists,  both  as  a  thinker  and  as  a 
force.  Since  Channing  and  Dewey,  few  Unita- 
rian writers  have  shown  such  a  singular  combina- 
tion of  tender  persuasiveness  and  resolute  vigor 
as  constantly  appears  in  the  unpublished  sermons 
of  Mr.  King.  Beneath  the  words  of  scores  of 
discourses  omitted  in  this  collection,  I  have  felt 
throbbing  within  the  sentences  the  mind,  heart, 
and  soul  of  an  exceptionally  gifted  man,  who  had 
the  rare  power  of  communicating  the  largeness, 
sincerity,  generosity,  and  nobleness  of  his  char- 
acter in  every  record  of  his  spiritual  experience 
and  every  utterance  of  his  kindling  thought.  A 
denomination  of  Christians  which  slights  the  writ- 
ings of  such  a  religious  genius,  bred  in  and  nur- 
tured by  its  faith,  is  doomed.  Indeed,  the  neglect 
of  religious  genius  in  any  sect  or  church  is  a  sure 


Thomas  Starr  King,  Ivii 

sign  of  that  religious  mediocrity  which  is  the  fore- 
runner of  spiritual  death.  Nothing  more  honora- 
bly distinguishes  the  Church  of  England  than  its 
solicitude  to  have  the  works  of  its  great  thinkers 
and  divines,  in  presentable  editions,  constantly  in 
the  public  eye,  so  that  no  layman  can  claim  to 
have  a  knowledge  of  English  literature  unless  he 
is  familiar  at  least  with  the  writings  of  Hooker, 
Taylor,  Fuller,  Barrow,  South,  Chillingworth,  and 
Butler. 

Had  Mr.  King  ever  dreamed  that  his  sermons 
would  be  published,  he  would  have  carefully  re- 
vised them,  especially  in  respect  to  their  style. 
He  early  adopted  the  habit  of  dictating  to  an 
amanuensis.  Though  his  discourses  were  care- 
fully thought  out,  and  therefore  by  no  means  un- 
premeditated, they  were  still,  as  it  respects  their 
composition,  essentially  improvised.  He  did  not 
believe  —  until  he  was  forced  into  the  practice  in 
California  —  that  he  had  the  gift  of  speaking  ex- 
temporaneously ;  but  the  truth  is  that,  in  the  case 
of  almost  all  the  sermons  in  the  present  volume, 
he  extemporized,  as  he  walked  the  room,  to  the 
solitary  penman  who  was  taking  down  his  words, 
though  nothing  would  have  induced  him  to  speak 
without  verbal  preparation  to  his  Sunday  congre- 
gation. We  often  had  friendly  disputes  as  to  the 
real  value  and  usefulness  of  his  habit  of  dictating. 
He  contended  that  he  brought  out  the  leading 
idea  of  a  sermon  through  all  its  various  applica- 
tions to  life,  and  sustained  the  general  strain  of 


Iviii  Memoir  of 

feeling  animating  his  conception  of  the  whole, 
much  better  by  tliis  method  than  he  could  have 
done  by  sitting  down  at  his  desk  with  his  pen  in 
his  hand.  He  was  right  in  this,  for  there  was 
rarely  any  lack  of  symmetry  in  his  most  hastily 
prepared  discourses.  On  the  other  hand,  I  main- 
tained that  he  lost  in  compactness  many  of  the 
advantages  he  gained  in  "compass,"  —  that  his 
pen,  when  placed  in  his  own  fingers,  not  only  hit 
on  the  best  word  or  phrase  to  express  his  thought, 
but  really  deepened  the  thought  by  the  pauses 
which  composition  exacts.  The  dispute  culmi- 
nated late  on  one  Sunday  evening  after  he  had 
delivered  a  carefully  premeditated  lecture  on 
Hildebrand.  I  recklessly  offered  to  distinguish 
among  the  prominent  passages  which  were  fresh 
in  my  memory  those  which  he  had  himself  written 
from  those  he  had  dictated  to  his  amanuensis. 
Manuscript  in  hand,  he  laughingly  defied  me  to 
undertake  the  task.  By  good  luck  I  happened  to 
be  right  in  every  guess.  King,  however,  was  so 
wedded  to  his  favorite  method  of  expression,  was 
so  modestly  indifferent  to  literary  fame  in  prepar- 
ing his  pulpit  discourses,  and  was  so  confident 
that  they  would  never  be  published,  that,  even 
in  repeating  favorite  sermons  in  San  Francisco, 
he  never  made  an  alteration  in  the  construction 
of  an  involved  sentence,  and  rarely  substituted. a 
more  striking  and  efficient  epithet  for  the  one  he 
had  first  used  in  the  fluent  rush  of  extemporane- 
ous expression  to  his  amanuensis. 


Thomas  Starr  King,  lix 

As  a  result  the  critical  reader  will  feel  that 
some  paragraphs  in  these  printed  sermons  are 
too  perplexed  and  involved  in  their  expression. 
The  occasions,  however,  are  few,  where  this  crit- 
icism can  be  made.  The  unity  of  the  central 
thought  and  the  general  strain  of  eloquence  by 
which  it  is  enforced  will  strike  the  critic  more 
than  the  occasional  deviations  from  a  scrupulous 
rhetoric.  King's  mode  of  composition  led  him 
into  using  long  sentences.  He  seemed  to  have  a 
special  delight  in  lingering  on  dashes,  commas, 
and  semicolons,  and  to  avoid  as  long  as  he  de- 
cently could  the  pause  of  the  period.  Thomas 
Fuller,  in  speaking  of  Hooker,  quaintly  says  : 
"  His  style  was  long  and  pithy,  driving  on  a  whole 
flock  of  several  clauses  before  he  came  to  the  close 
of  a  sentence."  But  Hooker's  long  sentences  are 
masterpieces  of  rhetorical  art,  and  it  is  dangerous 
to  attempt  to  drive  on  a  "  flock  of  clauses,"  unless 
the  pen,  obeying  the  mind,  is  a  crook  that  keeps 
them  in  perfect  order,  and  compels  them  to  move 
in  rhythmical  cadences  to  a  harmonious  conclu- 
sion. Still,  with  all  abatements,  the  style  of  these 
sermons  would  alone  make  them  quite  remarkable 
specimens  of  pulpit  eloquence.  The  power  of  the 
preacher  is  recognized  in  his  easy  and  masterly 
way  of  bending  language  to  assume  the  shape  of 
every  subtle  variation  of  his  thought  and  every 
delicate  shade  of  his  feeling.  The  formal  rules 
of  rhetoric  are  evidently  absent  from  his  mind,  as 
in  glowing  sentences,  rich  in  allusion  and  imagery, 


Ix  Memoir  of 

he  pours  out  a  stream  of  mingled  reflections  and 
emotions  from  his  fertile  intellect  and  beneficent 
heart ;  but  the  result  is  generally  a  sermon  which 
is  not  only  spiritually  inspiring  but  artistically 
excellent. 

Dismissing,  however,  the  question  of  style, 
there  can  be  little  doubt  as  to  the  power  and 
persuasiveness  with  which  Mr.  King  enforces 
that  element  of  Christianity  which  is  at  once  its 
fundamental  principle  and  its  fundamental  fact, 
namely,  that  the  Spirit  of  God  comes  into  vital 
communion  with  the  souls  of  men.  In  this  belief, 
at  least,  he  is  as  evangelical  as  Jonathan  Edwards. 
Throughout  the  sermons  published  in  this  volume 
it  will  be  observed  that  the  awful  fact  of  this  com- 
munion of  the  Infinite  with  the  finite  soul  is  held 
up  as  outvaluing  all  earthly  blessings,  and  as  con- 
stituting the  utmost  bliss  that  heaven  can  bestow. 
He  was  very  familiar  with  all  the  arguments  which 
in  our  day  appear  to  demonstrate  that  the  Infinite, 
whoever  He  is,  or  whatever  It  is,  can  never  be 
known  through  the  processes  which  necessarily 
limit  human  thinking;  but  he  steadily  rejected 
the  doctrine  that  the  Infinite  was  therefore  simply 
the  Unknowable.  God,  infinitely  distant  from  the 
human  understanding,  might  still,  in  his  view,  be 
intimately  near  to  the  human  soul.  He  knew  it 
as  a  fact  of  personal  experience.  He  thought  it 
an  impertinence  to  declare  that  God  was  neces- 
sarily unknowable  because  he  could  not  be  re- 
ceived through  the  logical  faculty  of  the  mind. 


Thomas  Starr  King.  Ixi 

To  his  own  mind,  the  reasonings  of  scientists  were 
opposed  to  the  notorious  facts  of  Christian  con- 
sciousness. While  the  limitations  of  human  think- 
ing, as  expounded  by  Sir  William  Hamilton  or  Her- 
bert Spencer,  were  defiantly  thrown  at  his  head  in 
an  assembly  of  eager  disputants,  he  would  listen 
with  a  placid,  languid,  jaded  smile,  indicating  that 
he  was  spiritually  bored  by  the  discussion.  I  never 
remember  an  occasion  on  which  he  attempted  to 
answer  any  of  the  arguments  brought  forward  to 
show  that  the  Infinite,  if  he  existed,  must  still  be 
utterly  incapable  of  being  perceived  by  a  finite 
consciousness.  But  his  indestructible  faith  was 
that  a  Personal  God  did,  in  some  way,  open  a 
path  for  himself  into  the  human  soul,  and  that, 
through  the  highest  spiritual  affections,  he  found 
easy  avenues  of  approach  to  every  finite  human 
being  who  was  capable  of  saying  "  I  am."  This 
faith  is  dominant  in  all  the  sermons  in  the  present 
volume  j  and  connected  with  it  is  the  belief  that 
God  pervades  every  part  of  his  creation,  from  the 
unseen  minute  atom  which  no  microscope  can 
detect,  through  all  the  visible  kingdoms  of  nature, 
up  to  the  souls  of  the  greatest  scientific  and  poetic 
interpreters  of  nature.  To  him  God  was  every- 
where and  in  everything ;  and  yet  He  was  not  the 
impersonal  Power  of  the  pantheist,  but  a  God 
who  is  an  infinite  "  I "  and  not  an  infinite  "  It," 
—  a  God  who  personally  loves  and  cares  for 
every  soul  he  has  created. 

Connected  with  this  faith  was  his  conception 


Ixii  Memoir  of 

of  Christ  as  God's  special  manifestation  of  him- 
self to  humanity.  In  an  unpublished  sermon  on 
"  The  Piety  of  the  Heart,"  he  speaks  of  God  as  an 
Infinite  Christ.  "Theologians,"  he  says,  "have 
quarrelled  bitterly,  and  are  quarrelling  now,  over 
the  rank  of  Jesus,  and  yet  there  is  one  sense  in 
which  we  must  all  believe  that  Christ  is  God,  or 
our  Christianity  is  of  too  low  a  type  to  deserve 
the  name.  Not  as  to  the  scale  of  his  nature,  but 
as  to  the  essential  qualities  of  his  spirit,  we  must 
believe  that  Christ  is  the  expression  of  the  govern- 
ment of  the  universe.  What  Christ  was  in  finite 
measure,  under  the  limits  of  time,  and  in  a  human 
career,  God  is,  without  limits,  unfathomably  and 

forever This  is  the  great  gain  the  world 

has  made  through  Christianity,  that  it  puts  God 
into  expression,  makes  him  human,  authorizes  the 
sweetest  affections  of  our  nature  to  speak  for  him, 
brings  him  into  society  with  us  as  a  power  and 

charm  for  the  human  heart There  was  no 

manifestation  of  God  to  the  heart  of  humanity 
till  Christ  walked  in  Palestine,  and  said,  '  He 
that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father,'  and 
lived  a  religion  of  pity,  tenderness,  and  sacrifice. 
God  became  human  then,  and  the  extent  of  our 
Christianity  is  measurable  now  by  the  fulness  of 
our  faith  that  God  is  an  Infinite  Christ ;  that  he 
has  purposed  nothing  and  will  do  nothing  against 
humanity  that  could  not  have  originated  in  the 
pitying  mercy  of  Jesus ;  and  that  the  sacred 
beauty  of  that  patience,  sympathy,  and  charity 


Thomas  Starr  King,  Ixiii 

was  made  to  glow  in  history,  that  its  colors  might 
be  reflected  back  over  the  whole  Inji7tite,  so  that 
the  human  heart  might  know  its  God,  and  be 
saved  from  the  impiety  of  ignorance  and  from 
despair." 

The  question  of  miracles  troubled  Mr.  King 
but  little.  The  real  miracle  to  him  was  the  char- 
acter of  Christ.  The  question  whether  God  would 
interfere  with  the  laws  of  the  natural  world  was 
subsidiary,  in  his  mind,  to  the  palpable  fact  that 
in  sending  Christ  into  the  world  he  had  interfered 
with  the  order,  or  rather  the  disorder,  of  the  moral 
world.  He  says  in  one  of  his  sermons  that,  if 
he  had  lived  at  the  time  Christ  appeared,  he 
was  sure  he  would  have  witnessed  the  eyes  of  the 
blind  Bartimeus  opened,  or  the  daughter  of  Jairus 
raised  from  the  dead,  with  less  wonder  than  he 
would  have  experienced  in  listening  to  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount.  The  opening  of  the  blind 
bodily  eye  was  less  marvellous  than  the  opening 
of  the  blind  spiritual  eye,  and  the  resurrection  of 
the  body,  in  this  sphere  of  life,  less  amazing  than 
the  resurrection  of  souls  that  appeared  to  be  dead, 
though  clothed  in  living  forms.  The  power  to 
awaken  a  soul  —  a  soul  buried  in  foul  and  sloth- 
ful habits,  or,  if  not  altogether  dead,  still  "rot- 
ting half  a  grain  a  day"  —  was  the  miracle  which 
would  have  attracted  his  attention  then,  just  as 
much  as  it  attracted  his  attention  eighteen  hundred 
years  after  the  power  had  first  been  exercised. 

With  these  convictions,  the  paramount  idea  in 


Ixiv  Memoir  of 

Mr.  King's  sermons  is  the  unity  of  spiritual  life. 
He  refused  to  make  the  broad  distinction,  which 
is  prominent  in  most  theologies,  between  present 
and  future  existence.  Life  was  one  in  eternity  as 
in  time,  and  to  get  life,  and  to  get  it  "  more  abun- 
dantly," was  our  duty  in  this  world,  as  it  would  be 
our  bliss  in  the  world  to  come.  In  the  sermons 
printed  in  the  present  collection  on  "Christian 
Thought  of  Another  Life,"  "  True  Spiritual  Com- 
munications," "The  Divine  Estimate  of  Death," 
"  Deliverance  from  the  Fear  of  Death,"  and  "  The 
Distribution  of  Sorrows,"  it  will  be  seen  with  what 
tenderness,  yet  still  with  what  austerity,  he  shows 
that  "the  solemnity  of  religion  attaches  not  to 
death,  but  to  character" ;  that  physical  Ufa  is,  in 
the  eye  of  God,  a  trifle  of  small  account ;  that 
the  tomb  is  simply  "the  robing-room"  of  the 
spirit  in  entering  upon  a  new  but  strictly  continu- 
ous existence ;  that  what  is  called  hardship  is  the 
condition  of  saintship ;  that  many  apparently  good 
people  here  "  suffer  for  the  want  of  suffering  ";  and 
that  the  distribution  of  sorrows,  cruel  and  unjust 
if  our  life  is  restricted  to  this  earth,  will  be  found 
to  be  beneficent  and  equitable  in  the  continuation 
of  life  after  the  encumbrance  of  the  body  has 
been  dropped  at  the  grave.  The  passages  in 
which  reference  is  made  to  our  occupations  in  the 
next  stage  of  existence  are  specially  significant 
and  suggestive.  The  most  austere  of  these  ser- 
mons, that  on  "  The  Distribution  of  Sorrows,"  was 
repeated  in  San  Francisco  on  the  Sunday  when 


Thomas  Starr  King,  Ixv 

he  went  to  his  church  from  what  he  feared  might 
be  the  death-bed  of  his  beloved  daughter.  "  Edith 
very  sick,"  he  wrote  against  the  date  marking  its 
repetition.  Those  who  know  the  depth  and  ten- 
derness of  Mr.  King's  domestic  affections  can 
alone  realize  the  intensity  of  personal  grief  with 
which  he  penned  that  simple  record. 

All  the  sermons  here  printed  are  alive  with 
evidences  of  Mr.  King's  love  of  nature,  and  of 
nature  as  the  expression  of  the  ever-living  and 
beneficent  God  who  created  and  sustains  it.  Its 
laws,  forms,  hues,  and  sounds  became,  to  him, 
symbols  of  moral  truths,  —  in  fact,  words  of  a  su- 
persensuous  language  which  only  a  devout  spirit 
could  intelligently  read.  He  eagerly  devoured 
all  the  books  of  popularized  science  written  by 
masters  in  their  several  provinces  of  investiga- 
tion. His  imagination  was  particularly  impressed 
by  the  vastness  and  grandeur  of  the  universe  as 
revealed  by  astronomy.  All  the  scientific  infor- 
mation he  acquired  passed  rapidly  through  a 
process  by  which  it  was  first  idealized  and  then 
spiritualized.  The  reader  will  note  this  three- 
fold view  of  nature  —  scientific,  poetic,  and  re- 
ligious —  as  characterizing  all  the  sermons  in  this 
volume  ;  but  it  specially  appears  in  the  sermon 
on  "The  Comet  of  1861,"  and  in  the  sermons  en- 
tided  "  Lessons  from  the  Sierra  Nevada,"  "  Re- 
ligious Lessons  from  Metallurgy,"  and  "  Living 
Water  from  Lake  Tahoe."  The  latter  is  perhaps, 
in  style  and  thought,  the  most  exquisite  of  Mr. 


Ixvi  Memoir  of 

King's  compositions.  In  all  of  them,  however, 
the  thoughtful  reader  will  be  impressed  by  the  in- 
stinctive felicity  with  which  he  Christianizes  every 
aspect  of  nature  his  eye  perceives. 

But  it  will  also  be  seen  that  in  all  these  ser- 
mons everything  is  brought  to  bear  on  the  abso- 
lute necessity  of  righteous  conduct.  Mr.  King, 
while  intensely  sensitive  to  the  joy  of  spiritual 
communion,  was  no  epicure  of  spiritual  emotion. 
The  higher  the  point  of  contemplation  he  reached, 
the  more  efficient  became  the  downward  swoop  of 
his  mind  on  the  iniquities  of  the  world.  Lessing, 
in  contrasting  the  Christian  speculation  of  his 
time  with  the  vices  of  the  period,  once  bitterly 
declared  :  "  We  are  angels  in  our  knowledge,  but 
devils  in  our  lives."  King  keenly  felt  this  antithe- 
sis between  thoughts  and  acts,  between  doctrines 
assented  to  by  the  reason  and  convictions  which 
become  motives  to  the  will.  In  a  lecture  on 
"  Ability  and  its  Voices,"  he  said  :  "  It  is  an  era 
in  the  pulpit  when  a  man  steps  into  it  who  can 
thoroughly  vitalize  the  words  which  are  offered  to 
every  pulpit  speaker.  There  is  nothing  more  for 
pulpit  eloquence  to  do  than  to  properly  unfold  the 
phrases  that  God  is  the  sovereign  and  ruler  of  the 
universe,  that  God  is  love,  that  his  Spirit  strives 
with  every  soul.  But  if  a  man  attempts  to  handle 
these  words  as  outward  things,  as  implements,  he 
is  pulled  down  by  them.  They  are  too  vast  and 
heavy  to  be  wielded  mechanically.  It  is  only 
when  the  power  of  them  has   been   transfused 


Thomas  Starr  King.  Ixvii 

through  the  man's  nature,  so  that  he  becomes 
transparent  with  them,  that  the  utterance  of  them 
changes  from  commonplace  to  the  most  thriUing 
and  amazing  truths  that  can  be  poured  into  human 
ears.  Every  preacher  is  appointed  to  revivify  the 
word  once  spoken,  and  now  cool  within  the  cov- 
ers of  the  New  Testament,  —  restore  it  as  nearly 
as  possible  to  its  original  temperature  and  glow." 
There  is  not  a  discourse  in  the  present  volume 
which  has  not  for  its  object  this  vitalizing  of  Scrip- 
ture language,  so  as  to  quicken  the  spiritual  prin- 
ciples underlying  all  efficient  moral  action,  and 
of  making  virtue  attractive  as  well  as  obligatory. 
He  clearly  saw  that  conduct  was  not  much  influ- 
enced by  giving  the  most  pointed  statements  to 
moral  maxims,  and  by  showing  that  vice  was 
unreasonable  as  well  as  unrighteous.  He  fell 
back  on  the  mighty  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
of  God,  a  personal  power,  always  knocking  at  the 
door  of  the  human  heart,  always  ready  to  enter 
and  reinforce  its  struggles  with  iniquity  by  com- 
municating Divine  strength,  and  only  shut  out  by 
human  folly,  perverseness,  and  sin.  Indeed,  if 
one  searched  among  the  spiritual  thinkers  of  Eng- 
land for  an  appropriate  motto,  which  would  fitly 
condense  the  animating  thought  of  these  sermons, 
he  would  find  it  in  the  thrilling  sentence  wherein 
Sir  Thomas  Browne  expresses  his  belief  in  the 
communion  of  the  Divine  with  the  human  mind 
as  an  awe-inspiring  fact  of  human  consciousness. 
"  There  is/'  he  says  with  a  sweet  solemnity,  "  a 


Ixviii  Memoir  of 

common  Spirit  which  plays  within  us  yet  makes 
no  part  of  us,  the  Spirit  of  God,  the  fire  and  scin- 
tillation of  that  noble  and  mighty  essence  which 
is  the  life  and  radical  heat  of  all  minds ;  and 
whosoever  feels  not  the  warm  breath  and  gentle 
ventilation  of  this  Spirit  (though  I  feel  his  pulse), 
I  cannot  say  he  lives ;  for  truly,  without  this,  to 
me  there  is  no  heat  under  the  tropic,  and  no  light 
though  I  dwell  in  the  very  body  of  the  sun.'^ 

At  the  memorial  service  at  Hollis  Street 
Church,  after  the  news  of  Mr.  King's  death  was 
received,  eloquent  and  touching  addresses  were 
made  by  his  friends,  the  Rev.  Dr.  E.  H.  Chapin 
and  the  Rev.  Edward  E.  Hale.  Some  remarks 
by  the  editor  of  the  present  volume,  delivered  on 
the  same  occasion,  inasmuch  as  they  happen  to 
be  devoted  to  a  general  review  of  Mr.  King's 
character  and  career,  are,  by  request,  appended 
to  this  brief  Memoir. 

I  CANNOT  doubt  that  all  of  you,  friends  and 
parishioners  of  Thomas  Starr  King,  have  felt 
how  difficult  it  is  to  speak  in  detail  of  the  quali- 
ties of  him,  the  mere  mention  of  whose  name  so 
quickly  brings  up  his  presence  in  all  its  gracious 
and  genial  power,  and  his  nature  in  all  its  ex- 
quisite harmony.  He  comes  to  us  always  as  a 
person,  and  not  as  an  assemblage  of  qualities  ; 
and  however  precious  may  be  the  memory  of  par- 
ticular traits  of  mind  or  disposition,  they  refuse 


Thomas  Starr  King,  Ixix 

to  be  described  in  general  terms,  but  are  all  felt 
to  be  excellent  and  lovable,  because  expressive 
of  him.  Others  may  attract  us  through  the  splen- 
dor of  some  special  faculty,  or  the  eminency  of 
some  special  virtue  ;  but  in  his  case  it  is  the  whole 
individual  we  admire  and  love  ;  and  the  faculty 
takes  its  peculiar  character,  the  virtue  acquires 
its  subtile  charm,  because  considered  as  an  out- 
growth of  the  beautiful,  beneficent,  and  bounte- 
ous nature  in  which  it  had  its  root. 

And  here^  I  think,  we  touch  the  source  of  his 
influence  and  the  secret  of  his  power,  as  friend, 
pastor,  preacher,  writer,  patriot,  and  —  let  me  add 

—  statesman.  He  had  the  rare  felicity,  in  every- 
thing he  said  and  did,  of  communicating  himself, 

—  the  most  precious  thing  he  could  bestow;  and 
he  so  bound  others  to  him  by  this  occupation  of 
their  hearts,  that  to  love  him  was  to  love  a  second 
self.  This  communication  was  as  unmistakable 
in  his  lightest  talk  with  a  chance  companion  as  in 
that  strong  hold  on  masses  of  men,  and  power  of 
lifting  them  up  to  the  height  of  his  own  thought 
and  purpose,  which,  in  the  case  of  California, 
will  give  his  name  a  position  among  the  moral 
founders  of  states.  Everybody  he  met  he  uncon- 
sciously enriched ;  whithersoever  he  went  he  in- 
stinctively organized.  Meanness,  envy,  malice, 
bigotry,  avarice,  hatred,  low  views  of  public  and 
private  duty,  all  bad  passions  and  paltry  expe- 
diencies, slunk  ^way  abashed  from  every  mind 
which  felt  the  light  and  heat  of  that  sunlike  na- 


Ixx  Memoir  of 

ture  stealing  or  streaming  into  it.  Such  evil 
spirits  could  not  live  in  such  a  rebuking  presence, 
whether  it  came  in  the  form  of  wit,  or  tenderness, 
or  argument,  or  admonition,  or  exhilarating  ap- 
peal, or  soul-animating  eloquence.  Everybody 
became  more  generous  from  contact  with  that 
radiating  beneficence  ;  everybody  caught  the  con- 
tagion of  that  cheerful  spirit  of  humanity ;  every- 
body felt  grateful  to  that  genial  exorcist,  who 
drove  the  devils  of  selfishness  and  pride  from  the 
heart,  and  softly  ensconced  himself  in  their  va- 
cated seats.  The  wonder  is,  not  that  he  raised 
so  much  for  benevolent  purposes,  but  that  he  did 
not  make  a  complete  sweep  of  all  the  pockets 
which  opened  so  obediently  to  his  winning  appeal. 
Rights  of  property,  however  jealously  guarded 
against  others,  were  felt  to  be  impertinent  towards 
him ;  his  presence  outvalued  everything  in  the 
room  he  gladdened  with  his  beaming  face ;  people 
were  pleasingly  tormented  with  a  desire  to  give 
him  something;  for  giving  was  so  emphatically 
the  law  of  his  own  being,  he  was  so  joyously  dis- 
interested himself,  that,  in  his  company,  avarice 
itself  saw  the  ridiculous  incongruity  of  its  greed, 
and,  with  a  grim  smile,  suffered  its  clutch  on  its 
cherished  hoards  to  relax. 

And  this  thorough  good-nature  had  nothing  of  \ 
the  weakness,  nothing  of  the  cant,  nothing  of  the 
fear  of  giving  offence,  nothing  of   the  self-con- 
sciousness, nothing  of  the  bending  and  begging 
air  of  professional  benevolence,  but  was  as  erect 


Thomas  Starr  King,  Ixxi 

and  resolute  as  it  was  wholesome  and  sweet.  It 
seemed  the  effect  of  the  native  vigor  as  well  as 
the  native  kindliness  of  his  cordial  and  opulent 
soul.  It  never  cloyed  with  its  amiability.  It  did 
not  insult  the  poor  with  condescension,  or  court 
the  rich  with  servility,  but  took  its  place  on  an 
easy  equality  and  fraternity  with  all,  without  the 
pretence  of  being  the  inferior  or  superior  of  any. 
While  he  was  too  manly  to  ape  humility,  the 
mere  idea  of  setting  himself  up  as  "  a  superior 
being  "  would  have  drawn  from  him  one  of  those 
bursts  of  uncontrollable  merriment,  happy  as  child- 
hood's and  as  innocent,  which  will  linger  in  the 
ears  of  friends  who  often  heard  that  glad  music, 
until  the  grave  closes  over  them  as  it  has  over 
him. 

The  expression  of  this  nature  through  the  in- 
tellect was  as  free  from  obstruction  as  through 
morals  and  manners.  His  mind,  like  his  heart, 
was  open  on  all  sides.  Clear,  bright,  eager, 
rapid,  and  joyous ;  with  observation,  memory, 
reason,  imagination,  in  full  play ;  with  a  glance 
quick  to  detect  the  ludicrous  as  well  as  the  beau- 
tiful ;  and  with  an  analogical  power,  both  in  the 
region  of  fancy  and  understanding,  of  remarkable 
vivacity  and  brilliancy,  —  his  intellect  early  fast- 
ened on  facts  and  on  principles  with  the  delight 
of  impulse  rather  than  the  effort  of  attention 
and  will.  In  swiftness  and  exactness  of  percep- 
tion, both  of  ideas  and  of  their  relations,  he  was 
a  marvel  from  his  boyhood.     Grasping  with  such 


Ixxii  Memoir  of 

ease,  and  assimilating  with  such  readiness,  the 
nutriment  of  thought,  he  made  mind  faster  than 
others  receive  impressions.  His  faculties  pal- 
pably grew  day  by  day,  increasing  their  force  and 
enlarging  their  scope  with  every  fresh  and  new 
perception  of  nature  and  books  and  men.  He 
tasted  continually  the  deep  joy  of  constant  men- 
tal activity.  Who  shall  measure  the  happiness 
of  that  exhilarating  sense  of  daily  increase  of 
knowledge  and  development  of  power  ?  —  the 
sweet  surprise  of  swift-springing  thoughts  from 
never-failing  fountains,  —  the  glow  and  elation  of 
soul  as  objects  poured  in  from  without,  and  ideas 
streamed  out  from  within  ?  His  mind,  as  in- 
dependent as  it  was  receptive,  and  as  free  from 
self-distrust  as  from  presumption,  never  lost  its 
balance  as  it  sensitively  quivered  under  the  va- 
rious knowledge  that  went  thronging  into  it ;  for 
there,  at  its  centre,  was  the  judgment  to  dispose 
as  well  as  the  passion  to  know,  and  the  sacred 
hunger  for  new  truth  and  beauty  never  degen- 
erated into  that  ignoble  gluttony  which  paralyzes 
the  action  of  the  intellect  it  overfeeds. 

There  is  something  glorious  in  the  contempla- 
tion of  a  youth  passed  in  such  constant,  such 
happy,  such  self-rewarding  toil.  He  had  a  natu- 
ral aptitude  for  large  ideas  and  deep  sentiments. 
His  mind  caught  at  laws  immersed  in  bewildering 
details,  —  darted  to  the  salient  points  and  delved 
to  the  central  principles  of  controverted  ques- 
tions,—  and  absorbed  systems  of  philosophy  as 


Thomas  Starr  Kin^,  Ixxiii 


i>' 


hilariously  as  others  devour  story-books.  The 
dauntless  stripling  grappled  with  such  themes  as 
Plato  and  Goethe,  and  wrote  about  them  with  a 
prematureness  of  scholarship,  a  delicacy  of  dis- 
cernment, a  sweet,  innocent  combination  of  con- 
fidence and  diffidence,  which  were  inexpressibly 
charming.  Throughout  his  career,  in  sermon  and 
in  lecture,  this  strong  tendency  to  view  everything 
in  its  principles  was  always  prominent ;  and  as  a 
popularizer  of  ideas  removed  from  ordinary  appre- 
hension, —  secreted,  indeed,  from  general  view  in 
the  jargon  of  metaphysics,  —  he  was,  perhaps, 
without  an  equal  in  the  country. 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  say  what  this  mind 
might  not  have  grown  to  be,  had  not  the  drain  on 
its  energies  begun  almost  as  early  as  the  unfold- 
ing of  its  faculties,  had  not  the  dissipation  of 
power  nearly  kept  pace  with  its  accumulation. 
His  time,  talent,  and  sympathies  were  the  prop- 
erty of  all  they  delighted  and  benefited.  The 
public  seized  on  him  at  an  early  age,  and  did  not 
loosen  its  grasp  until  within  a  few  days  of  his 
death.  His  parish  was  not  confined  to  this  so- 
ciety, but  covered  the  ever-enlarging  circle  of  his 
acquaintances  and  audiences.  The  demands, 
accordingly,  on  that  fertile  brain  and  bounteous 
heart  were  constant  and  endless.  We  were  al- 
ways after  him  to  write,  to  preach,  to  lecture,  to 
converse;  we  plotted  lovingly  against  his  leisure; 
and  as  long  as  there  was  a  bit  of  life  in  him,  we 
claimed  it  with  all  the  indiscriminate  eagerness 


Ixxiv  Memoir  of 

of  exacting  affection.  As  soon  as  a  thought 
sprouted  in  his  head,  we  insisted  on  having  it ; 
and  we  were  all  in  a  friendly  conspiracy  to  prevent 
his  exercise  of  that  patient,  concentrated,  unin- 
terrupted thinking,  which  conducts  to  the  heights 
of  intellectual  power. 

Perhaps  his  elastic  mind  might  have  stood  this 
drain;  but  the  mind  is  braced  by  the  emotional 
forces  which  underlie  it,  and  it  was  on  these  that 
his  friends  delighted  to  feed.  His  sympathetic 
nature  attracted  towards  him  the  craving  for  sym- 
pathy in  others  ;  and  nothing  draws  more  on  the 
very  sources  of  vitality,  mental  and  moral,  than 
this  assumption  of  the  sorrows,  disappointments, 
miseries,  and  heart-breaks  of  others,  this  incessant 
giving  out  of  the  very  capital  and  reserve  fund 
of  existence,  to  meet  the  demands  for  sympathy. 
I  have  sometimes  seen  him  physically  and  morally 
fatigued  and  exhausted  from  this  over-exertion  of 
brain  and  heart,  and  have  wondered  why,  if  each 
found  it  so  hard  to  bear  his  own  burdens  in 
silence,  we  did  not  consider  the  cruelty  of  casting 
the  burdens  of  all,  in  one  mountainous  load,  upon 
him. 

When  we  remember  this  immense  readiness  to 
give,  this  admission  of  the  claims  of  misfortune 
and  trouble  to  take  out  patent-rights  on  his  time 
and  sympathy,  it  is  astonishing  how  much,  intel- 
lectually, he  achieved.  This  was  owing  not  more 
to  the  fine  quality  of  his  intellect  than  to  its  mode 
of  action;  for  deep  down  in  the  very  centre  of 


Thomas  Starr  Kinr.  Ixxv 


<b* 


his  being  was  the  element  of  beauty,  and  this  un- 
ceasingly strove  to  mould  all  he  thought  and  did 
into  its  own  likeness.  It  was  not  only  expressed 
in  fancy  and  imagination,  in  the  richness  of  his 
imagery  and  the  cadence  of  his  periods,  and  in 
that  peculiar  combination  of  softness  and  fire 
which  lent  to  his  eloquence  its  persuasive  power, 
but  it  gave  luminousness  to  his  arrangement, 
method  to  his  scholarship,  consecutiveness  to  his 
argumentation,  symmetry  to  his  moral  life.  It 
abridged  as  well  as  decorated  his  work.  Things 
that  went  into  his  mind  huddled  and  confused, 
hastened  to  fall  into  their  right  relations,  and 
harmoniously  adjust  themselves  to  some  definite 
plan  and  purpose,  as  soon  as  they  felt  the  dis- 
posing touch  of  that  artistic  intelligence  to  which 
all  disorder  was  unbecoming  as  well  as  unsys- 
tematic. This  quality  of  beauty,  an  element  of 
his  character  as  w^ell  as  a  shaping  faculty  of  his 
mind,  demanded  symmetry  in  all  things,  —  sym- 
metry of  form  in  things  imaginative,  symmetry 
of  law  in  things  intellectual,  symmetry  of  life  in 
things  moral.  The  besetting  sins  of  the  head 
and  the  heart  appeared  to  him  uncomely  as  well 
as  wrong,  and  he  avoided  them  through  an  in- 
stinctive love  of  the  good  and  the  fair.  As  much 
of  our  intellectual  and  moral  effort  is  spent  in 
removing  obstacles  and  overcoming  temptations, 
and  as  from  this  weary  work  he  was  in  a  great 
measure  spared,  the  time  saved  was  so  many 
years  added  to  his  life. 


Ixxvi  Memoir  of 

But  it  must  be  added  that  this  pervading  senti- 
ment of  the  beautiful  did  not  make  him  one  of 
those  bigots  of  the  ideal  whom  the  deformities 
of  practical  life  keep  in  a  morbid  state  of  con- 
stant moral  or  mental  irritation.  From  the  fret 
of  this  fine  fanaticism,  which  always  weakens  the 
character  it  seemingly  adorns,  he  was  preserved 
by  his  exquisite,  his  delicious,  sense  of  the  ludi- 
crous. The  deformed,  when  his  eye  sparkled  upon 
it,  hastened  to  change  into  the  grotesque;  it 
acquired,  indeed,  a  quaint  beauty  of  its  own ;  it 
irritated,  not  his  nerves,  but  his  risibiUties ;  it  slid 
into  his  loving  heart,  —  always  open  to  things 
human,  —  and  was  there  nursed  and  cherished  on 
the  sunniest  mirth  and  laughter  that  humorous 
object  ever  fed  upon.  For  the  morally  deformed 
his  whole  being  had  an  instinctive  repugnance ; 
but  when  himself  the  mark  at  which  meanness  or 
malice  aimed,  he  always  seemed  to  me  rather 
amused  than  exasperated.  The  oddity  of  the 
meanness,  the  strange  futility  of  the  malice,  af- 
fected him  like  a  practical  joke  ;  quick  as  light- 
ning to  detect  the  base  thing,  he  still  dismissed  it 
laughingly  from  his  mind,  with  hardly  the  appear- 
ance of  having  suffered  wrong,  and  certainly 
without  any  desire  or  intention  to  retaliate.  No 
w^ound  could  fester  in  his  humane  and  healthy 
soul. 

The  love  of  the  beautiful,  to  which  I  have  re- 
ferred as  so  strong  an  element  in  his  nature,  was, 
as  it  regards   natural   scenery,  most   completely 


Thomas  Starr  King,  Ixxvii 

embodied  in  his  eloquent  book  on  the  White 
Hills,  a  mountain  region  which  will  look  the 
sadder  to  us  now  that  the  loving  chronicler  of 
its  varying  aspects  of  grandeur  and  grace,  who 
has  associated  his  own  name  with  every  valley 
and  peak,  will  visit  it  no  more ;  but  when  his 
sermons  and  lectures  are  published,  it  will  be 
seen  how  closely  the  beautiful  in  nature  was  linked 
in  his  mind  with  the  beautiful  in  thought,  in  char- 
acter, and  in  action.  He  loved  his  theological 
calling,  and  it  was  his  ambition  to  pay  the  debt 
which  every  able  man  is  said  to  owe  his  profession, 
namely,  to  contribute  some  work  of  permanent 
value  to  its  literature.  Had  he  lived,  he  would,  I 
think,  have  written  the  most  original,  the  most 
interpretative,  and  the  most  attractive  of  all  books 
on  the  life,  character,  and  epistles  of  the  Apostle 
Paul.  But  it  was  ordered  that  his  life  should  be 
chiefly  spent  in  direct  action  on  men  through 
speech  and  personal  influence ;  and  theology 
might  well  wait  for  the  book,  when  humanity  had 
such  pressing  need  for  the  man. 

I  hardly  know  how  to  speak  of  his  moral  and 
spiritual  qualities ;  for,  noble  as  they  were,  they 
were  not  detached  from  his  mind,  but  pervaded 
it.  Both  as  a  thinker  and  as  a  reformer  he  was 
brave  almost  to  audacity ;  but  his  courage  was 
tempered  by  an  admirable  discretion  and  sense 
of  the  becoming,  and  his  quick  self  recovery  from 
a  mistake  or  error  was  not  one  of  the  least  of  his 
gifts.      He  seemed  to  have  no  fear,  not  even  the 


Ixxviii  Memoir  of 

subtlest  form  which  fear  assumes  in  our  day,  — 
the  fear  of  being  thought  afraid.  No  superciUous 
taunt,  or  imputation  of  timidity,  could  sting  him 
into  going  farther  in  liberal  theology  and  reform- 
ing politics  than  his  own  intelligence  and  con- 
science carried  him.  Malignity  was  a  spiritual 
vice  of  which  I  have  sometimes  doubted  if  he 
had  even  the  mental  perception.  His  charity  and 
toleration  were  as  wide  as  his  knowledge  of  men. 
Controversy  was  a  gymnastic  in  which  he  de- 
lighted to  brace  his  faculties,  but  he  could  look  at 
disputed  questions  from  the  point  of  view  of  his 
opponents,  discriminate  between  dogmas  and  the 
holders  of  them,  and  assail  opinions  without  un- 
wittingly defaming  character.  "  Speaking  the  truth 
in  love,"  was  a  text  which  he  seemed  born  to 
illustrate ;  and  if,  as  a  theologian,  he  did  not  per- 
ceive the  moral  evil  of  the  world  in  all  its  ghastli- 
ness,  it  was  because  its  most  hateful  forms  stole 
away  when  he  appeared,  and,  addressing  what 
was  good  in  men,  the  good  went  gladly  out  to  him 
in  return.  His  piety,  pure,  deep,  tender,  serene, 
and  warm,  took  hold  of  the  positive  principles  of 
light  and  beneficence,  not  of  the  negative  ones 
of  darkness  and  depravity,  and  —  himself  a  child 
of  the  light  —  he  preached  the  religion  of  spiritual 
joy. 

The  rarity  of  such  a  character,  and  the  wide 
influence  it  was  calculated  to  exert  in  virtue  of  its 
native  qualities,  were  only  seen  in  all  their  beauty 
and  might  when  he  went  from  us  to  California 


TJwmas  Starr  King^  Ixxix 

and  we  looked  at  him  from  afar.  In  four  years 
he  condensed  the  work  of  forty.  The  very  genius 
of  organization  seemed  to  wait  upon  his  steps. 
Men  flocked  to  him  as  to  a  natural  benefactor. 
As  a  clergyman,  he  built  up  the  strongest  church 
vci  the  State,  with  an  income  the  largest  of  any  in 
the  land.  As  a  philanthropist,  he  raised  for  the 
most  beneficent  of  all  charities '^^^  the  most  munifi- 
cent of  all  subscriptions.  As  a  patriotic  Christian 
statesman,  he  included  the  real  elements  of  power 
in  the  community,  took  the  people  out  of  the 
hands  of  disloyal  politicians,  lifted  them  up  to  the 
level  of  his  own  ardent  soul,  and  not  only  saved 
the  State  to  the  Union,  but  imprinted  his  own 
generous  and  magnanimous  spirit  on  its  forming 
life.  In  the  full  speed  of  this  victorious  career, 
with  the  blessings  of  a  nation  raining  upon  him, 
he  was  arrested  by  death,  —  the  rich  and  abound- 
ing life  suddenly  summoned  to  the  Source  of  Life, 
and  "  happy  to  go."  Human  willingness  could 
hardly  answer  the  Divine  Will  with  more  perfect 
submission  ;  and  it  is  not  for  us,  who  remember 
with  what  a  shock  of  inexpressible  grief  and  pain 
that  unexpected  departure  smote  the  hearts  of 
kindred  and  friends,  but  who  also  remember  how 
often  from  this  pulpit,  and  from  his  lips,  we  have 
been  taught  that  the  purpose  of  Providence  in 
sending  death  is  always  beneficent,  to  doubt  that 
the  stroke,  so  heavy  to  us,  so  "  happy  *'  to  him, 
was  prompted  by  wisdom  and  love.     Bowing  be- 

*  The  Sanitary  Commission. 


Ixxx    Memoir  of  Thomas  Starr  King. 

fore  that  transcendent  mystery,  and  not  seeking 
to  penetrate  it,  let  iis  find  consolation  in  the  failh 
that  this  child  of  the  light  has  been  caught  up 
into  the  Light  Ineffable,  that  this  preacher  of 
the  religion  of  spiritual  joy  has  entered  into  the 
Joy  of  his  Lord  ! 

EDWIN  P.  WHIPPLE. 


L I  B  II  A  H  Y 

UNJA  EKSITV  OF 

CALIFOKNIA. 


L 

THE  EXPERIMENTAL  EVIDENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

"  The  man  answered  and  said  unto  them,  Why,  herein  is  a  mar- 
vellous thing,  that  ye  know  not  from  whence  he  is,  and  yet  he  hath 
opened  mine  eyes."  —  ^okn  ix.  30. 

WHAT  a  singular  and  interesting  dispute 
concerning  the  claims  of  Christ  was  that 
from  which  the  passage  just  read  has  been 
selected  !  The  parties  concerned  in  it  make  it 
as  remarkable  as  the  suggestions  which  their 
discussion  furnishes  to  our  mind.  On  one  side 
were  learned  and  subtle  men,  who  had  made  the- 
ology the  study  of  their  life,  and  who  had  argu- 
ments in  favor  of  their  system  at  their  fingers*  end. 
On  the  other  side  was  a  poor,  despised,  unlettered 
man,  who  could  not  appreciate  the  intricacies  of 
systematic  theology,  and  probably  could  not  un- 
derstand the  terms  in  which  its  principles  were 
couched.  The  Pharisees  denied  vehemently  the 
claims  of  Christ,  and  attempted  to  vilify  his  char- 
acter. The  poor  man  strenuously  and  confidently 
defended  both.  But  their  discussion  produced 
little  effect  upon  each  other,  for  they  argued  from 
different  premises.     The  Pharisees  judged  Christ 


2  The  Experimental  Evidence 

by  a  theory.  Because  he  did  not  fulfil  their  no- 
tions of  what  the  Jewish  Messiah  should  be,  be- 
cause his  career  did  not  square  with  their  inter- 
pretations of  the  prophecies  and  the  traditions, 
because  he  held  a  different  view  from  their  own 
of  the  Sabbath  and  of  the  nature  of  religion,  they 
rejected  his  claims  with  considerable  scorn.  These 
objections,  however,  did  not  touch  the  source  of 
their  opponent's  convictions.  He  had  experienced 
a  most  blessed  and  an  enduring  benefit  from  the 
divine  power  of  Jesus.  From  his  birth  he  had 
been  blind.  The  world  of  forms  and  colors,  the 
brilliancy  of  the  dawn  and  the  pomp  of  the  sun- 
set and  the  dim  grandeur  of  the  starlit  sky,  the 
majesty  of  the  hills,  and  the  "  pensive  quietness  " 
of  the  meadows,  and  the  faces  of  his  kindred  and 
friends,  —  all  the  varieties  and  glories  of  God's 
art  had  been  to  him  as  though  they  were  not. 
He  had  grown  to  manhood  in  a  rayless  world. 
Christ  had  touched  his  eyes,  and  he  saw.  A  new 
world  was  instantly  open  to  him.  He  beheld  a 
universe  of  which  before  he  had  no  conception, 
and  he  felt  that  from  that  hour  existence  would 
bring  to  him  infinitely  greater  joy.  Is  it  any  won- 
der, then,  that  the  speculative  objections  of  the 
Pharisees  were  powerless  upon  his  soul?  He 
owed  a  new  being  to  the  influence  of  Jesus  ;  every 
beautiful  reality  of  nature  which  his  unsealed  eyes 
beheld  attested  the  power  of  Christ,  and  he  could 
only  reply  to  the  subtle  insinuations  of  his  ques- 
tioners, "  Whether  he  be  a  sinner  or  no  I  know 


of  Christianity,  3 

not :  one  thing  I  know,  that  whereas  I  was  blind, 
now  I  see." 

Here  we  see  a  practical  conviction  of  the  claims 
of  Christ  set  against  speculative  doubts  of  those 
claims ;  and  so  this  dispute  between  the  restored 
blind  man  and  the  Pharisees  is  a  symbol  of  what 
often  happens  in  the  world.  It  would  be  easy  to 
find  men  now  who  have  doubts  concerning  Chris- 
tianity born  of  intellectual  inquiry,  which  they  find 
it  impossible  to  appease  ;  while  there  is  another 
class  of  persons  who  feel  a  confidence  in  Chris- 
tianity born  of  inward  experience,  which  it  would 
be  impossible  to  overthrow.  And  if  two  persons 
representing  these  two  classes  should  meet  and 
attempt  a  discussion,  they  could  not  understand 
each  other,  for  their  souls  would  not  touch.  The 
believing  man  could  not  confute  nor  dispel  the 
doubts  that  would  be  reported  to  him  by  his  op- 
ponent, because  he  had  never  felt  those  doubts, 
and  could  not  judge  of  their  validity.  The  scep- 
tical man  could  receive  no  immediate  aid  from  the 
practical  conviction  of  the  believer,  for  that  con- 
viction could  not  be  translated  from  feeling  into 
effective  statement  in  words.  One  is  troubled  with 
doubts  about  the  miracles  ;  the  other  can  tell  only 
of  the  sweet  peace  of  Christian  duty,  and  a  sense 
of  pardoned  sin.  One  cannot  see  that  the  links 
are  complete  in  the  historical  chain  of  evidence 
for  the  authenticity  of  the  four  Gospels  ;  the  other 
can  only  answer  that  the  words  of  those  Gospels 
have  nourished  his  soul,  and  made  life  a  more  no- 


4  The  Experimental  Evidence 

ble  experience  and  bereavement  less  painful  and 
the  tomb  less  dark.  One  cannot  be  entirely  sure 
that  such  a  person  as  Christ  ever  lived  ;  the  other 
feels  that  it  is  his  highest  privilege  to  follow  the 
spirit  of  the  recorded  Christ  and  to  be  a  disciple 
of  his  published  temper.  One  may  anxiously  be 
waiting  for  the  last  book  by  some  great  German 
theological  scholar,  to  settle  or  confirm  his  waver- 
ing mind  upon  some  point  of  the  evidence  ;  the 
other  strengthens  his  faith  by  the  daily  responses 
that  are  vouchsafed  to  Christian  prayers.  One 
questions  from  a  darkened  intellect ;  the  other 
answers  from  a  sunHt  soul.  One  cannot  but  say, 
from  the  force  of  the  doubts  which  his  philosophy 
has  started,  "  As  for  this  man  Jesus,  I  know  not 
from  whence  he  is";  the  other  replies,  "Why, 
herein  is  a  marvellous  thing,  that  you  know  not 
from  whence  he  is,  and  yet  he  hath  opened  mine 
eyes." 

It  is  implied  in  what  we  have  now  said  that 
there  are  two  lines  of  evidences  for  Christ  and 
his  religion,  that  are  almost  entirely  independent 
of  each  other,  one  of  which  is  addressed  to  the 
understanding,  and  the  other  to  the  soul.  These 
two  lines  ought  to  blend  together,  and  will  come 
to  a  focus  in  a  perfectly  constituted  faith ;  but 
they  will  blend  as  separate  rays  from  different 
quarters  of  the  world  of  truth.  And  there  are 
these  two  lines  of  evidence  for  the  truth  of 
Christ's  religion  because  Christianity  presents  two 
aspects,  — one  historical,  and  the  other  spiritual, — • 


of  Christianity,  5 

a  side  of  narrative  which  is,  as  it  were,  its  envelope, 
and  of  truths  which  constitute  its  essence.  There 
are  the  annals  which  it  proposes  for  our  credence 
through  the  pages  of  the  four  Evangelists,  such  as 
that  Jesus  was  born  of  certain  parents,  lived  at 
a  certain  epoch,  wrought  miracles,  was  crucified, 
rose  from  the  tomb,  and  ascended  into  heaven. 
This  is  the  historical  framework  of  Christianity, 
and  the  way  to  determine  the  validity  of  it  is  by 
the  thorough  scrutiny  of  the  understanding  of  the 
historical  proofs  for  the  authenticity  and  veracity 
of  the  records.  A  person  who  has  examined  those 
proofs,  and  finds  them  sufficient  to  convince  his 
mind,  —  as  they  have  convinced  the  greatest  minds, 
—  is  a  believer  in  the  facts  of  Christian  history. 
And  then  there  are  the  great  spiritual  principles 
of  the  Gospel,  —  its  laws  of  moral  life,  its  revela- 
tions concerning  God  and  duty  and  destiny,  the 
means  it  offers  for  the  redemption  and  education 
of  the  soul,  —  a  person  who  has  in  some  measure 
felt  the  power  of  those  principles,  and  experienced 
the  peace  and  joy,  the  thrilling  sense  of  spiritual 
health,  which  are  induced  by  living  in  harmony 
with  the  requirements  of  Christianity,  is  a  believer 
in  the  essence  or  vital  truths  of  the  Gospel.  And 
no  other  evidence  can  be  substituted  for  this  in- 
ward, experimental  proof,  for  no  other  evidence 
but  that  is  natural  or  possible  in  relation  to  that 
branch.  Historical  evidence  is  requisite  to  settle 
historical  questions,  and  spiritual  evidence  is  ne- 
cessary to  settle  spiritual  questions.     We  believe 


6  TJie  Experimental  Evidence 

in  the  biographies  of  Jesus  because  the  testimony 
of  the  first  and  second  centuries  is  strongly  in 
favor  of  their  veracity;  but  we  cannot  know 
whether  the  religion  of  Jesus  is  competent  to 
satisfy  and  educate  the  soul  until  we  see  what  it 
actually  does  for  men,  and  feel  its  power  in  our 
own  breasts. 

The  question  is  earnestly  debated  now  which  of 
these  two  hnes  of  evidence  for  Christianity  is  the 
more  powerful  and  satisfactory.  The  proper  an- 
swer, of  course,  should  be  that  both  are  essential, 
for  each  line  supports  a  peculiar  department  of 
the  Gospel.  If  we  believe  that  it  will  always  be, 
as  it  surely  must  be,  of  importance  to  the  world  to 
know  that  Christ  lived,  and  that  the  miracles  were 
wrought,  and  that  he  was  crucified  and  rose,  then 
the  historical  proofs  of  the  Evangelists'  account 
will  always  be  needed  \  and  if  faith  in  the  history 
of  Christ  shall  ever  die  out  from  the  heart  of  so- 
ciety, I  believe  that  his  religion  would  lose  its  hold 
upon  the  world.  But  as  an  evidence  of  the  essen- 
tial truth  of  the  religion  of  the  New  Testament, 
the  practical  evidence  must  always  be  the  stronger. 
Its  force  increases  with  every  century;  the  success 
of  every  new  missionary  in  a  heathen  land  adds 
to  it;  the  experience  of  each-converted  man  makes 
it  more  intense  ;  and  with  the  mass  of  Christians 
it  is  now  the  great  pillar  of  faith  in  the  Gospel. 
And  the  progress  of  time  will  make  it  still  more 
emphatically  the  bulwark  of  Christianity.  Not 
that  men  will  ever  grow  indifferent  to  the  histor- 


of  Christianity,  7 

ical  facts  of  the  Gospel,  —  that  Jesus  lived  and 
was  the  divinely  commissioned  Teacher,  —  but 
that  they  will  reason  to  the  fact  of  his  actual  ex- 
istence and  divinity  from  the  practical  evidence 
which  the  soul  furnishes  for  his  religion.  The 
argument  against  scepticism  with  the  great  body 
of  believers  will  be  the  argument  of  the  unlet- 
tered Jew,  ^'Wh}^,  herein  is  a  marvellous  thing." 
Critics  may  say  it  is  illogical  to  reason  so,  still 
that  is  the  way  men  do  reason  and  will  reason. 
Men  are  very  apt  to  reason,  often  to  some  pur- 
pose too,  in  ways  not  recognized  in  books  of  logic. 
And  perhaps,  if  we  look  closely  enough,  we  shall 
see  a  beautiful  proof  of  the  Divine  forethought 
for  the  Gospel,  that,  as  we  float  away  from  the 
early  ages,  and  the  light  of  their  testimony  grows 
fainter  in  the  distance,  new  proofs  shall  arise  and 
command  attention,  from  the  influence  of  Chris- 
tianity age  after  age  upon  society  and  the  soul,  — 
proofs  that  not  only  hold  the  faith  of  men  to  its 
essential  principle,  but  also  sustain  their  confi- 
dence in  its  historic  facts. 

But  to  return  to  the  topic  which  is  the  especial 
theme  of  this  discourse.  The  ordinary  scepticism 
of  men,  we  repeat,  does  not  affect  the  core  of  the 
religion  of  Jesus.  It  merely  plays  around  the  his- 
tory of  it,  and  although  even  there  it  is  weak,  yet 
it  is  worth  while  to  remember  that  it  does  not  pre- 
tend to  do  anything  more  than  to  throw  dpubts 
around  the  record  of  some  facts  ;  it  does  not  pre- 
tend to  invalidate  the  essential  truth  of  Christ's 


8  The  Experimental  Evidence 

instructions.  Only  that  kind  of  scepticism  which 
denies  that  man  has  a  rehgious  nature  and  is  a 
religious  being  can  affect  the  groundwork  of  the 
Gospel,  and  such  a  scepticism  is  a  disease  that 
can  hardly  be  cured  by  proof.  A  truly  Christian 
man,  although  he  may  never  have  looked  into  a 
volume  of  the  evidence  for  the  genuineness  of  the 
Christian  records,  feels  a  testimony  for  the  Chris- 
tian religion  in  his  own  heart  which  raises  him 
above  scepticism  about  the  record.  Jesus  referred 
to  this  proof  when  he  said,  *'  If  ye  do  his  will  ye 
shall  know  of  the  doctrine  whether  it  be  of  God." 
"He  that  believe th  hath  the  witness  in  himself 
Perhaps  such  a  man  had  long  been  wholly  selfish 
and  worldly.  But  by  being  brought  within  the 
circle  of  Christian  influences  his  best  faculties 
have  been  awakened  and  developed.  And  now 
he  sees  life  in  a  different  light.  The  wisdom  and 
goodness  of  God  are  suggested  to  him  from  every 
side  of  nature ;  it  is  a  delight  to  cherish  a  sense 
of  reliance  upon  the  Deity  and  to  feel  at  all  times 
that  God  is  the  Father ;  the  darkness  of  selfish- 
ness is  exchanged  for  the  deep  satisfaction  of  de- 
votion to  duty,  the  slavery  of  passion  for  the  peace 
of  purity,  the  misery  of  fear  for  the  joy  of  love, 
the  fever  thirst  after  worldly  goods  for  the  serene 
bliss  of  faith,  and  holy  longings  for  the  favor  of 
God  and  the  perfectness  of  Christ ;  existence  is 
recognized  as  a  spiritual  privilege,  death  regarded 
as  the  door  to  immortality,  and  the  universe  be- 
comes a  temple  for  the  worship  of  the  Almighty. 


of  Christianity,  9 

Find  a  heart  in  which  this  conversion  of  princi- 
ples, feelings,  and  aims  has  been  experienced, 
and  you  find  a  heart  that  feels  an  immovable 
conviction  of  the  truth  of  Christianity.  Its  peace, 
its  joys,  its  consciousness  of  spiritual  health,  its 
insight  into  a  new  world  of  which  before  it  had 
no  conception,  all  bear  testimony  to  the  reality 
of  Christ's  religion.  What  if  some  man  tells  him 
that  the  historical  proof  is  not  entirely  perfect  and 
convincing.  The  principles  of  Christianity  are  his 
sustenance;  he  has  found  the  Gospel  to  be  spiritual 
bread;  he  can  no  longer  live  without  it;  and,  know- 
ing that  it  nourishes  his  soul,  and  is  indispensable 
to  his  peace,  he  does  not  care  to  dispute  about  the 
way  in  which  that  bread  was  prepared,  and  the 
method  of  its  first  introduction  to  the  world,  He 
is  sure  that  the  soul  needs  it,  and,  being  sure  of 
that,  he  cannot  believe  that  it  came  into  the  world 
by  accident  or  by  deception.  And  therefore  his 
last  answer  to  scepticism  about  Jesus  is  the  an- 
swer of  the  text,  "Why,  herein  is  a  marvellous 
thing,  that  ye  know  not  from  whence  he  is,  and 
yet  he  hath  opened  mine  eyes." 

The  great  question  which  should  determine  the 
essential  truth  of  any  religion  is  the  practical  one, 
—  What  can  it  do  for  man  ?  Does  it  provide  for 
his  weakness?  does  it  meet  his  needs?  does  it  edu- 
cate and  satisfy  his  spiritual  nature  ?  If  it  does  all 
these  perfectly,  it  must  have  been  made  for  man, 
and  it  must  be  true,  unless  God  is  a  deceiver,  and 
the  soul  itself  an  organized  cheat. 


lo  The  Experimental  Evidence 

And  the  most  searching  question  that  can  be 
put  to  a  candid  and  intelligent  doubter  of  revela- 
tion is  this  :  Do  you  not  believe  that  a  man  is 
made  better  by  becoming  a  Christian, — a  sincere, 
enlightened,  whole-hearted  Christian  ?  Compare 
such  a  one  with  a  coarse,  sensual,  worldly  man,  or 
with  a  refined  and  polished  selfish  person ;  do 
you  not  believe  that  man  is  a  purer,  nobler,  more 
exalted  being,  if  his  moral  sensibilities  are  awak- 
ened, if  he  is  always  loyal  to  right,  if  he  is  honor- 
able, kind,  benevolent,  disinterested,  if  he  reveres 
God  and  loves  his  fellows  and  lives  for  immor- 
tality ?  Let  the  question  be  put  to  all  who  hesi- 
tate respecting  the  truth  of  Christianity  :  Do  you 
not  believe  that  the  world  would  be  benefited 
beyond  conception  if  all  men  should  to-day  be- 
come perfect  Christians  ?  Would  you  not  prefer 
to  live  in  the  society  of  such  men  ?  Would  you 
not  prefer  that  your  child  should  grow  up  under 
such  influences  and  become  such  a  character, 
that  your  friends  and  kindred  should  become  so  ? 
nay,  have  you  any  objection  to  being  such  a  char- 
acter yourself? 

What  then  will  you  say  when  a  character  which 
you  admire,  —  when  a  score  of  such  persons  tell 
you :  —  We  owe  everything  to  Christianity  ;  it  has 
crushed  our  selfishness;  it  has  tamed  our  passions; 
it  has  filled  our  cravings;  it  has  refined  our  senti- 
ments ;  it  has  uplifted  and  inspired  our  hearts ;  it 
has  taught  us  how  to  be  children  of  God,  how  to 
bear  sorrow,  how  to  forgive  our  foes ;  it  has  un- 


of  Christianity,  1 1 

sealed  our  spiritual  vision  and  disclosed  realities 
in  life  —  the  highest  realities  —  to  which  before 
we  were  wholly  blind.  What  will  you  say,  my 
friends,  to  this  practical  testimony  for  Christianity? 
Will  you  venture  to  contend  that,  while  the  results 
of  Christ's  religion  are  so  glorious,  the  religion 
itself  is  a  delusion ;  that  what  is  best  in  the  moral 
universe  is  yet  untrue  ?  It  is  a  sad  thing  to  see  a 
man  sceptical  concerning  Christianity  in  the  face 
of  such  evidence,  for  his  scepticism  is  a  confes- 
sion that  he  does  not  trust  in  the  reality  of  his 
purest  conceptions  of  right  and  holiness,  that  he 
believes  the  good  in  God's  dominion  to  be  a  lie. 

The  most  prominent  argument  for  the  truth  of 
Christianity,  the  most  prominent  argument  for 
perpetuity,  is  the  practical  one, — what  it  has  done, 
what  it  is  doing,  for  man.  There  are  those  who 
sometimes  talk  as  though  Christianity  was  dying 
out,  will  soon  die  out,  as  a  force  in  the  world. 
But  the  simple  question  with  regard  to  its  exist- 
ence as  a  power  in  society  is  this :  Shall  the 
world  go  back  ?  shall  civilization  lose  what  it  has 
gained  ?  shall  the  ideal  of  character  which  Chris- 
tianity has  painted  before  the  human  conscience 
fade  or  be  scouted  away  ?  Does  progress  lie  in 
the  direction  of  barbarism  ?  Is  the  world  to  reach 
to  such  a  state  of  advancement  that  selfishness 
will  be  found  better  than  disinterestedness,  and 
love  meaner  than  revenge,  and  sin  more  comfort- 
able than  redemption  from  sin,  and  the  idea  of  a 
parental  Providence  less  elevating  than  the  con- 


12  The  Experimental  Evidence 

ception  of  a  stern  necessity  or  senseless  chance  ? 
Let  no  Christian  be  disturbed  by  the  fear  that  the 
Gospel  will  perish  until  he  has  concluded  that 
good  is  ephemeral  and  doomed  to  die.  *'  Heaven 
and  earth  shall  pass  away,  but  my  words  shall  not 
pass  away."  Find  anything  better  than  the  relig- 
ion of  Christ,  a  system  better  adapted  to  human 
wants,  a  system  which  contains  truths  and  laws  to 
which  the  spiritual  instincts  of  the  purest  minds 
are  more  readily  attracted,  —  in  a  word,  a  system 
that  can  educate  character  to  a  higher  type  than 
that  of  the  Gospel,  —  and  though  it  come  from  a 
wild  negro  tribe  in  Africa,  though  it  be  found 
scratched  on  bark  among  the  savages  of  Pata- 
gonia, we  ought  to  take  it,  take  it  as  a  divine 
revelation,  and  let  Christianity  pass  into  the  back- 
ground as  a  religion  of  the  past.  If  the  Mormons 
can  point  to  it,  I  will  gladly  be  a  Mormon  ;  if  the 
Turk  can  show  it,  I  will  be  a  Mohammedan  ;  if 
the  Brahmins  can  produce  it,  I  will  exchange  the 
New  Testament  for  the  Vedas.  No  historical 
evidence  can  stand  before  the  disproof  of  a  higher 
spiritual  thought.  The  discovery  of  such  a  sys- 
tem would  demonstrate  the  fact  that  Christ,  like 
Moses,  is  not  the  religious  teacher  for  eternity. 
Any  man  is  Justified  in  abandoning  Christianity 
when  he  has  found  something  purer  and  higher, 
and  not  till  then.  The  Church  has  the  right  to 
hold  every  sceptic  to  this  problem  :  Produce  your 
truth,  your  morality,  your  type  of  character  that 
shall  be  seen  to  be  higher  than  Christianity,  that 


of  Christianity,  13 

we  too  may  have  it,  or  accept  Christianity  because 
of  your  inability  to  conceive  the  possibility  of 
doing  it. 

Let  this  proof  of  the  Gospel  be  deeply  impressed 
upon  our  minds  :  in  the  world  that  God  governs 
what  is  highest  must  be  truest ;  what  will  open 
the  eyes  more  powerfully  than  any  other  influence, 
what  will  quicken  the  conscience  more  thoroughly 
than  anything  else,  what  will  best  cheer  the  heart, 
what  will  most  inspire  the  affections,  what  will  fill 
the  soul  with  holy  light,  cannot  but  be  as  true  and 
permanent  as  the  eternal  throne. 

And  so  every  benefit  which  the  Gospel  has  con- 
ferred upon  society,  every  element  of  life  it  has 
infused  into  civilization,  every  great  disinterested 
character  it  has  produced,  every  noble  institution 
it  has  projected,  is  an  evidence  of  its  reality  and 
strength. 

In  exchange  for  sages  like  Socrates  it  has  given 
to  humanity  sages  like  St.  Bernard ;  for  teachers 
like  Pythagoras,  teachers  like  Oberlin ;  for  heroes 
like  Alexander,  heroes  like  Howard ;  for  the  vic- 
tories of  Caesar,  the  victories  of  Father  Mathew; 
for  speculators  like  Plato,  missionaries  like  Paul. 
All  that  is  purest  and  most  refined  in  our  art  and 
our  eloquence,  all  that  is  most  cheering  and  ele- 
vating in  our  literature,  all  that  is  most  stable  and 
comforting  in  our  philosophy,  all  that  is  most 
praiseworthy  and  beneficial  in  our  society,  —  the 
church,  the  school,  the  ministry  for  the  poor,  the 
missionary  post,  the  abolition  movement,  the  tem- 


14  The  Experimefital  Evidence 

perance  pledge,  the  asylum,  the  hospital,  the  char- 
itable sewing-circle,  the  hundred-handed  methods 
of  modern  beneficence,  —  are  blessings  we  hav^e 
derived  from  Christianity  in  exchange  for  evils  that 
once  existed  in  their  stead.  Humanity,  once  poor, 
blind,  and  scorned,  has  slowly  for  centuries  been 
raising  itself  from  the  dust,  quickened  by  the 
words  of  Christ,  and  now,  as  light  is  breaking 
upon  its  brain,  as  new  hopes  and  a  new  existence 
begin  to  gleam  before  it,  we  hear  it  uttering  its 
sweet  and  earnest  plea  against  scepticism,  "Why, 
herein  is  a  marvellous  thing,  that  ye  know  not 
whence  this  Jesus  is,  and  yet  he  hath  opened 
mine  eyes." 

The  historical  evidence  for  the  Gospel  is  strong, 
but  it  is  hid  in  dusty  books  and  ancient  parch- 
ments, and  besides  it  is  not  applicable  to  the  whole 
of  Christianity.  How  much  more  cheering  and 
inspiring  is  the  proof  that  is  based  on  the  essen- 
tial divinity  of  perfect  goodness,  on  the  regenerat- 
ing influence  that  has  been  poured  into  the  heart 
of  society  from  the  recorded  life  and  character  of 
Jesus,  or  the  fact  that  the  most  cultivated  soul 
bows  most  reverently  to  his  reported  precepts,  and 
can  catch  no  glimpse  of  spiritual  truth  that  is 
higher  than  his  words  !  Can  it  be  that  such  a  rec- 
ord is  fiction  ?  that  what  has  been  the  source  of 
all  our  great  and  substantial  blessings  is  itself  un- 
real, a  forgery  or  a  dream  ?  My  friends,  even  if 
we  could  be  convinced  that  it  is  so ;  if  the  four 
biographies  of  the  Saviour  should  ever  be  shown 


of  Ckristiam(yS^^  ■        ^/^i5     ^  /) 

to  be  four  variations  of  a  delightraljJaW^  if  it^^j^ 
should  be  proved  that  the  Christ  we  s^^  tq^£^  rj 
in  the  misty  distance  of  centuries,  walking  ^ongy/ 
the  poor,  shedding  new  life  even  from  his  gar- 
ment's hem  into  paralytic  souls,  speaking  of  the 
Father's  mercy,  and  fanning  the  spark  of  love  in 
human  hearts,  is  an  optical  illusion  ;  if  the  story 
of  the  crucifixion  —  of  the  thorn-crown  worn  so 
patiently,  of  the  dying  eyes  upturned  in  trust,  and 
the  lips  parted  by  a  forgiving  prayer —  be  no  more 
real  than  a  vision  before  some  ancient  poet's  eye ; 
—  still  in  the  name  of  goodness  and  of  conscience 
let  us  cling  to  it  as  the  best  thing  and  therefore 
the  truest  which  the  universe  contains,  as  the  ideal 
of  human  duty,  as  a  myth  which  must  have  its 
counterpart  of  reality  in  some  portion  of  God's 
realm.  If  we  reject  it,  and  say  that  it  is  false  and 
useless,  let  us  abandon  religion  with  it,  and  give 
up  our  belief  in  God.  For  there  can  be  no  Athe- 
ism more  chilling  than  that  which  permits  a  man 
to  say  that  the  good  is  not  the  true. 

The  splendid  and  convincing  proof  of  the  gos- 
pel is  the  practical  proof,  —  our  need  of  it  and  its 
adaptedness  to  our  deepest  need,  —  the  testimony 
that  comes  from  the  great  natures  of  all  sects  and 
nations  and  times,  whose  hearts  it  has  mellowed 
and  whose  minds  it  has  blessed,  —  the  testimony 
of  martyrs  who  have  died  for  it  as  their  most  pre- 
cious treasure,  the  testimony  from  the  breasts 
where  it  has  kindled  the  flame  of  prayer,  from  the 
affections  it  has  supported  in  times  of  sorrow,  from 


1 6  Evidence  of  Christianity. 

the  graves  which  faith  has  covered  with  roses  and 
symbolical  evergreen.  No  soul  that  has  ever  been 
uplifted  by  its  spirit  has  doubted  of  its  truth. 
What,  then,  is  the  extent  of  our  belief  in  Chris- 
tianity? This  question  is  equivalent  to  the  in- 
quiry. How  deeply  are  our  hearts  influenced  by 
the  spirit  of  the  Gospel?  If  we  have  its  life 
within  us  we  shall  feel  conscious  of  its  truth,  and 
just  in  proportion  to  our  inspiration  of  its  life  will 
be  the  depth  of  our  faith.  Faith  in  Christ,  —  how 
much  meaning  is  hidden  in  that  phrase  1  It  im- 
plies a  heart  baptized  in  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel, 
a  will  faithful  to  its  laws,  a  soul  filled  with  the 
peace  of  fellowship  with  the  Redeemer.  Every 
disinterested  act  we  do  from  the  impulse  of  its 
law,  every  prayer  we  offer  to  the  Father  it  reveals, 
every  pure  emotion  we  cherish  from  love  of  its 
great  Teacher,  will  strengthen  our  conviction  of  its 
reality  and  worth.  Without  the  spirit  of  it  within, 
the  greatest  among  us  are  blind.  Happy  is  each 
one  of  us  who  can  offer  this  proof  of  Christ's  di- 
vinity, —  "  He  hath  opened  mine  eyes." 


Cries  from  the  Depths.  17 


II. 

CEIES   FROM   THE   DEPTHS. 

"  Out  of  the  depths  have  I  cried  unto  thee,  O  Lord."  —  Psalm 

CXXX.   I. 

"  Hear  my  cry,  O  God ;  attend  unto  my  prayer.  From  the  end 
of  the  earth  will  I  cry  unto  thee,  when  my  heart  is  overwhelmed : 
lead  me  to  the  rock  that  is  higher  than  I."  — Psalm  Ixi.  i,  2. 

THE  wonderful  psalm,  of  which  the  text  is 
the  keynote,  utters  the  great  yearning  of 
human  nature,  and  attests  its  need  of  an  infi- 
nite helper  and  an  infinite  joy.  The  religious 
sentiment  in  our  bosoms  manifests  itself,  in  its 
power,  either  as  a  deep  and  piercing  cry,  or  as  a 
jubilant  experience  of  satisfaction,  peace,  and  bliss. 
When  there  is  a  profound  sense  of  God  in  the 
soul  and  a  consciousness  of  filial  harmony  with 
him,  the  whole  being  has  a  sense  of  rest  and  of 
serene  joy,  which  can  be  expressed  only  in  those 
rich  words  of  Scripture,  —  "  the  peace  that  pass- 
eth  understanding."  And  any  one  who  has  felt 
this  experience  needs  no  other  assurance,  for  there 
can  be  none  higher,  of  the  reality  of  religious 
truth. 

But  every  heart  that  has  any  strong  wrestle  with 
life,  and  that  does  not  know  these  profound  sat- 


1 8  Cries  from  the  Depths, 

isfactions  of  faith,  is  conscious,  through  its  long- 
ings, of  the  reality  of  religion.  Superficial  things 
answer  to  and  appease  the  superficial  sensibili- 
ties ;  but  when  the  deeps  of  the  nature  are  stirred, 
the  cry  of  the  soul  is  religious,  it  turns  toward 
God  and  craves  his  light  and  benediction. 

Whenever  any  of  the  deeper  emotions  are 
aroused,  there  is  a  demand  for  God,  a  reaching 
out  towards  the  Infinite  ;  and  no  satisfaction  is  felt 
until  he  is  found,  and  our  nature  reposes  upon  him. 
This  is  true  of  the  intellect.  In  our  ordinary  states 
of  feeling  we  content  ourselves  with  the  formula 
that  there  must  be  a  divine  Creator  of  this  world, 
and  that  atheism  is  impossible.  Perhaps  we  think 
that  the  whole  problem  of  nature,  as  related  to 
the  reason  of  man,  is  satisfied  by  this  cool  confes- 
sion that  the  world,  so  full  of  witnesses  of  design, 
must  have  had  a  designer.  But  when  the  human 
intellect  once  thoroughly  appreciates  the  problem 
of  this  universe,  once  feels  its  vastness,  once  gets 
a  focal  impression  of  the  splendor  of  it  in  the 
converging  light  gleaming  from  suns  and  galaxies, 
and  deep  beyond  deep  of  systems,  and  nebulous 
firmaments  spotting  the  far  recesses  of  immensity 
with  their  awful  haze,  —  when  once  it  realizes  the 
mystery  of  all  this  magnificence  that  illumines  the 
boundless  breadth  and  height  of  space, — yes, 
when  once  it  comprehends  the  order  of  it,  so  in- 
tricate and  silent  and  steady,  the  sweep  of  myri- 
ads of  planets  around  countless  suns  that  whirl 
and  blaze  and  fly,  each  with  its  vast  family  of 


Cries  from  the  Depths,  19 

orbs,  in  obedience  to  some  central  force,  while 
they  seem  to  us  fixed  continually  in  the  arching 
cope  of  azure,  —  is  there  not  a  cry  of  the  mind  for 
the  revelation  and  presence  of  a  being  who  em- 
bosoms all  this  stupendous  pageantry  of  matter,  for 
the  assurance  of  a  love  and  wisdom  which  is  the 
substance  of  all  this  scenic  glory,  and  with  which 
the  mind  that  studies  it  is  more  nearly  kindred 
than  all  the  marshalled  pomp  of  constellations  ? 

As  soon  as  the  human  intellect  appreciates  the 
universe  in  which  it  stands,  what  inexpressible 
need  it  feels  of  something  more  than  a  mathemat- 
ical assent  to  the  proposition  that  nature  must 
once  have  had  a  Creator !  how  it  needs  the  con- 
sciousness of  a  present  pervading  Spirit  looking 
out  upon  it  through  this  framework  of  matter,  and 
warming  the  whole  scene  with  the  expression  of 
providence,  —  with  benignity !  Nothing  can  be  so 
awful  as  the  state  of  a  great  mind  standing  face 
to  face  with  modern  astronomy,  and  not  feeling 
the  assurance  of  an  infinite  God,  whose  spirit  is 
nearer  to  its  reason  than  the  marvels  of  space  are 
to  its  imagination.  For  such  a  mind  is  enslaved 
to  matter.  It  must  feel  itself  crushed  into  insig- 
nificance by  the  vastness  and  weight  of  the  phys- 
ical glory  it  contemplates. 

If  we  have  not  felt  the  cry  of  the  mind  for  God, 
it  is  because  its  deeps  have  never  been  stirred  by 
the  tremendous  problem  of  nature  ;  it  is  because 
we  have  been  content  to  look  at  the  outside  of 
things,  and  to  live  by  superficial  opinions  and  hab- 


20  Cries  from  the  Depths, 

its  of  thought.  If  we  could  for  one  hour  compre- 
hend what  a  world  we  stand  in,  what  skies  over- 
arch us,  what  mysteries  belt  us,  what  an  order 
enfolds  us,  what  majestic  laws  secure  and  confine 
our  freedom  and  our  power,  we  could  not  exist 
another  day,  until  we  had  ennobled  and  calmed  the 
mind  by  a  reliance  on  the  Infinite  Wisdom,  and 
our  psalm  would  be,  "  Out  of  the  depths  of  this 
world  mystery  have  I  cried  unto  thee,  O  Lord." 

The  intellect,  as  related  to  the  human  world, 
utters  virtually  the  same  cry  towards  God  when  it 
once  sounds  the  questions  of  moral  order.  If  a 
man  can  look  at  the  outward  world,  and  gaze  into 
its  sheer  deeps  of  mystery,  and  up  through  the 
starry  strata  of  its  splendors,  without  feeling  im- 
pelled by  a  central  necessity  of  thought  to  rest  on 
the  knowledge  of  an  Infinite  Prescience  and  Prov- 
idence, how,  at  any  rate,  will  it  be  possible  for 
him  to  study  the  records  of  the  human  race,  or  to 
conceive  the  great  burdens  and  hopes  and  needs 
and  woes  of  the  general  human  heart  at  this  hour, 
without  a  hunger  and  thirst  of  soul  for  a  revela- 
tion to  it  of  a  divine  plan  which  the  partial  dis- 
cords in  the  centuries  will  not  paralyze,  of  a 
justice  that  works  from  the  centre  of  the  moral 
universe,  of  a  pity  whose  sweet  light  is  never  with- 
drawn from  this  bitter  sea  of  tears  ?  Keeping  out 
of  view  our  need  of  God,  as  the  fountain  of 
personal  grace  and  source  of  spiritual  life  for  the 
private  heart,  how  is  it  possible  for  a  human  mind 
to  live  away  from  him,  in  darkness  as  to  him, 


Cries  from  the  Depths,  2 1 

when  it  sees  so  much  oppression,  such  insolent 
wrong,  such  haughty  brutality,  such  proud  and 
sullen  selfishness,  intrenched  in  the  moral  world, 
and  opposing  its  passion  and  its  power  to  the 
march  of  goodness  and  the  voice  of  truth  ?  If  any 
one  of  us  here  could  survey  for  an  hour  the  real 
state  of  things  on  this  earth  now,  — could  see  the 
plans  which  consecrated  men  have  drawn  for  the 
broad  welfare  of  the  race,  and  how  they  are  baf- 
fled ;  could  see  the  injustice  and  vice  and  cruelty 
that  heave  their  billows  against  the  best  intents  of 
patriots  and  Christians,  and  could  have  one  intense 
conception  of  the  misery  which  innocent  souls  are 
enduring,  through  the  dominion  of  evil,  he  would 
startle  the  heavens  with  the  prayer  of  agony, 
"Where  art  thou,  O  God,  in  whose  hands  the 
thunders  sleep,  and  whose  justice  should  be  the 
basis  of  this  world  ?  "  There  would  be  no  peace 
for  us  till  we  had  some  vision  of  the  Infinite,  and 
felt  that  he  sees  all  this,  and  understands  its  pur- 
pose, and  wields  a  law  that  will  pierce  to  the 
marrow  of  all  guilt,  and  reserves  a  love  that  will 
bless  all  these  down-trodden  ones  with  infinite 
joy. 

Only  let  the  soul  believe  that  the  heavens  are 
not  passionless,  that  God  h,as  a  plan  for  humanity, 
of  which  the  few  centuries  of  history  thus  far 
show  only  the  half-chaotic  heavings,  and  it  can 
work  in  peace  and  study  in  peace.  It  has  the 
great  support,  then,  of  a  faith  that  there  is  a  Being 
who  sees  deeper,  wider,  farther,  than  the  wisest 


22  Cries  from  the  Depths. 

mortal  eye,  and  that  there  is  a  heart  filled  with  an 
ocean  of  goodness  that  will  yet  immerse  hmiianity. 
O,  the  glory  of  our  Christian  faith,  which  provides, 
by  just  such  a  revelation  as  this,  for  the  mind's 
importunate  cry,  that  fills  the  whole  heavens  and 
all  eternity  with  light  when  the  earth  seems  so 
gloomy,  and  that  says  to  us,  "  Take  courage,  be 
reverent,  and  hide  a  sweet  hope  for  man  in  your 
heart ;  for  your  sense  of  justice  is  only  the  feeblest 
ray  of  the  Infinite  equity ;  and  your  love,  that  is 
so  distressed  by  these  sorrows  of  the  race,  is  given 
to  you  only  that  you  may  lose  yourself  in  a  feeling 
of  an  unspeakable  mercy;  and  the  feeble  tri- 
umphs which  right  and  goodness  have  attained 
thus  far  in  history  are  only  the  forecast  rays  of  a 
glory  yet  to  break  over  all  mankind."  O  that  we 
might  go  down  into  the  deeps  and  wrestle  with 
this  great  mystery  of  human  life,  and  the  needs 
of  humanity,  in  order  that  our  moral  deadness 
might  be  broken,  in  order  that  through  the  cry 
which  would  be  forced  from  us  for  God,  we  might 
have  the  glory  of  his  presence  break  upon  us,  and 
feel  the  manly,  abounding  joy  of  a  belief  that 
evil  is  not  the  strongest  force  in  nature,  that  he 
cares  for  us,  that  he  works  for  us,  that  we  are 
nothing,  and  that  we  live  in  him. 

Yet  it  is  more  important  for  us  to  follow  the 
more  personal  leadings  of  the  subject.  When  we 
feel  that  we  are  in  the  deeps  of  sin,  when  we  are 
conscious  of  its  burdens  and  its  spiritual  misery, 
what  is  the  experience  of  the  soul  ?     Is  it  not  a 


Cries  from  the  Depths,  23 

cry,  a  cry  for  help,  —  a  cry,  sometimes,  almost  of 
despair,  a  cry  towards  the  Infinite  ? 

The  great  fact  of  this  universe  is  the  Person- 
ality of  God.  We  understand  its  beauties  and 
harmonies  only  when  we  regard  them,  and  delight 
in  them,  as  the  outgush  of  a  conscious  and  infinite 
Person,  —  not  a  set  of  laws,  but  a  supreme  and 
pervading  intelligence.  We  are  safe  against  scep- 
ticism, from  the  moral  perplexities  of  the  world, 
when  we  regard  it  as  ruled  by  a  wisdom  and  a 
care  that  flow  from  a  conscious  and  ineffable 
equity.  And  so,  brethren,  the  great  spiritual  call 
and  privilege  of  our  life  is  to  be  in  harmony  with 
this  holy  personality,  whose  highest  attribute  is 
infinite  love.  Who  can  utter  or  fathom  the  evil 
of  sinfulness  when  we  see  what  its  curse  is,  — 
nothing  less  than  a  falling  away  from  unity  or  fel- 
lowship with  God;  not  the  breaking  of  a  law  alone, 
but  unspeakable  distance  from  the  presence  and 
strength  of  the  Lawgiver  ;  not  a  misuse  of  good- 
ness merely,  but  a  turning  away  from  the  light  and 
benediction  of  him  who  is  better  than  his  good- 
ness, whose  presence,  whose  face,  whose  approval, 
are  worth  more  than  all  he  can  give  us  beside  ? 

This  is  the  misery  and  awfulness  of  a  state  of 
sin,  that  it  sinks  the  soul  into  the  depths,  so  that 
while  it  has  relations  with  persons  on  this  earth, 
it  loses  almost  the  sense  of  kindred  with  the  ho- 
liest person,  and  all  feeling  of  dependence  upon 
him  and  of  consecration  to  him.  Whether  we 
know  it  or  not,  this  is  the  terrible  judgment  upon 


24  Cries  from  the  Depths. 

chronic  evil,  deep-rooted  irreligiousness  of  heart. 
We  often  think  that  the  unrest,  the  pain,  the  inde- 
finable conscious  misery,  of  sin  is  the  saddest 
doom  it  brings.  But  no ;  these  are  signs  of  lurk- 
ing health.  Contentment  away  from  God,  satis- 
faction in  the  darkness  of  the  abyss  where  no  light 
from  his  countenance  penetrates,  the  rupture  of 
the  ties  between  our  soul  and  the  Infinite  soul, — 
this  is  the  dreadfulness  of  a  sin-loving  heart. 

When  a  man  defrauds  you  in  weight,  he  sins 
against  you,  not  against  the  scales,  which  are  only 
the  instrument  of  determining  true  and  false 
weight.  When  men  sin  it  is  against  God,  and 
not  against  his  law,  which  is  but  the  indicator  of 
right  and  wrong.  You  care  little  for  sins  against 
God's  law.  It  has  no  blood  in  its  veins,  no  sensi- 
bility. Now,  every  sin  that  you  commit  is  per- 
sonal to  God,  and  not  merely  an  infraction  of  his 
law.  It  is  casting  javelins  and  arrows  of  base 
desire  into  his  loving  bosom.  I  think  no  truth 
can  be  discovered  which  w^ould  be  so  powerful 
upon  the  moral  sense  of  men  aS  that  which  should 
disclose  to  them  that  sinning  is  always  a  personal 
offence  against  a  personal  God.  Law  without  is 
only  an  echo  of  God's  heart-beat  within.  Con- 
scious wretchedness  is  the  soul's  dim  perception 
of  its  loneliness  and  darkness,  the  first  tones,  per- 
haps, of  the  great  cry  that  will  break  from  it  when 
it  comes  to  a  clear  vision  of  the  depths  in  which 
it  is  sinking. 

Can  we  not,  almost  all  of  us,  respond  by  our  con- 


Cries  from  the  Depths,  25 

sciousness  to  this  statement,  that  irreligious  habits 
and  evil  passions  start,  in  some  moment  of  sudden 
and  clear  vision,  the  cry  for  Infinite  help  ?  Do  not 
seasons  visit  us,  when  we  see  that,  in  spite  of  our 
earthly  fortune  and  gilded  circumstances,  we  are 
spiritually  sunk  in  an  abyss,  that  there  is  light 
above  us,  far  off  above  us,  —  a  sweet  bright  sky, 
a  warm  serene  air,  —  and  that,  if  our  hearts  were 
only  right  with  God,  if  we  could  stretch  out  and 
take  his  hand  and  feel  in  friendship  with  him, 
we  should  be  lifted  into  that  spiritual  day? 

We  often  hear  of  a  difference  between  an  evan- 
gehcal  religion  and  one  that  cannot  claim  that 
title,  —  of  evangelical  preaching  as  something  dif- 
ferent from  moral  appeal  and  the  interpretation 
of  moral  truth.  Brethren,  there  is  an  evangelical 
preaching  related  directly  and  principally  to  our 
sense  of  sin  and  our  slavery  to  it.  And  I  beg 
you  to  see  that  the  distinction  of  it  is,  not  that  it 
denounces  doom  against  the  offender,  but  that  it 
comes  to  him  with  the  accents  of  pity  and  the 
tone  of  cheer.  The  true  evangel,  the  glorious 
gospel  to  us,  is,  that  w^e  have  only  to  cry  from 
our  depths,  earnestly  and  penitently,  to  God,  and 
his  grace  will  visit  us ;  we  shall  get  lifted  up  into 
sunshine.  It  is  not  his  justice  that  prevents  his 
mercy  from  reaching  us ;  it  is  our  contentment  in 
darkness,  our  love  of  what  is  bad,  or  our  nerve- 
less timidity  to  believe  in  his  grace  and  his 
eagerness  to  stretch  towards  us  the  everlasting 
arm.     It  is  not  his  vindictiveness  that  threatens 


26  Cries  from  the  Depths, 

us  with  hell ;  it  is  our  earthliness  that  sinks  us 
there,  —  into  the  deeps  where  we  do  not  know 
him,  or  care  to  worship  or  love  him ;  and  if  we 
are  contented  there,  that  is  our  lowest  hell.  God*s 
positive  relations  towards  us  are  those  of  compas- 
sion, —  an  infinite  desire  to  redeem  us  and  hft  us 
up.  It  was  the  glory  of  the  mission  of  Christ  to 
tell  us  this,  —  to  show  us  that,  when  we  feel  bound 
hand  and  foot  in  evil  habits,  we  need  not  remain 
crushed  in  the  folds  of  omnipotent  law,  but  that 
a  cry  will  bring  God  to  us ;  that  by  the  tears  of 
repentance  and  the  opening  of  the  heart  the 
breath  of  grace  will  lighten  our  burden,  so  that 
we  can  stand  at  once  humble,  joyful,  and  forgiven 
in  the  presence  of  the  Father.  Is  it  not  a  Gos- 
pel, is  it  not  glad  tidings,  that  tells  us  this,  —  a 
Gospel  bursting  with  unspeakable  hallelujahs  ? 
How  many  of  us  know  anything  of  it  by  experi- 
ence? There  is  no  doubt  that  most  of  us  are  "in 
the  depths."  Few  of  us  remain  so  contented  in 
the  bondage  of  the  world  that  we  do  not  feel  the 
wrestle  within  the  soul,  that  we  do  not  feel  the 
inmost  misery  of  our  unreconciliation.  But  do 
we  cry  towards  the  Highest  One  then  ?  Do  we 
ask  for  help,  for  light,  for  pardon  ?  That  is  the 
crisis-season  of  the  spirit ;  that  is  what  all  our 
experience  is  provided  for ;  that  is  why  the  bur- 
den is  rolled  upon  us  so  heavily,  —  the  whole  bur- 
den of  this  universe,  —  that  we  shall  make  simply 
that  ejaculation,  that  we  shall  send  up  into  the 
heavens  that  prayer,  which  the  whole  chorus  of 


Cries  from  the  Depths,  27 

praises  in  the  sky  could  not  keep  from  the  Infi- 
nite ear,  —  "  O  God,  help  me  in  the  depths  ! " 
Then  is  the  new  birth  in  the  soul;  then  piety  leaps 
full-formed  from  the  groaning  heart;  then  mists 
roll  away  from  the  world  ;  the  weights  drop  from 
our  feet ;  our  cry  is  answered ;  we  are  in  sunshine, 
we  are  free !  This  is  the  meaning  of  that  great 
passage  of  the  Apostle,  —  O  that  more  of  us  could 
know  its  truth  by  experience  !  —  "  Wretched  man 
that  I  am,  who  shall  deliver  me  from  the  body  of 
this  death  ?  I  thank  God  through  Jesus  Christ 
our  Lord." 

It  seems  hardly  proper  to  turn  from  that  which 
is  the  most  trying  and  searching  experience  of  the 
bosom,  to  a  less  solemn  sphere  of  the  subject; 
yet  we  shall  be  in  harmony  with  the  primary  sug- 
gestions of  the  Psalm  which  has  led  us  to  these 
thoughts,  if  we  speak  of  the  soul's  cry  out  of  the 
deeps  of  sorrow  and  the  burden  of  the  affections. 
How  naturally  these  two  thoughts  come  together, 
human  sorrow  and  God !  We  cannot  divorce 
them.  What  a  shock  it  gives  the  purest  sensi- 
bilities to  think  of  anything  temporal  as  the  offset 
or  compensation  of  a  severe  bereavement  of  the 
heart !  What  blasphemy  to  speak  of  or  imagine 
such  sorrow  compensated  by  wealth,  —  to  think  of 
station  as  an  offset  to  it,  or  earthly  pleasures  as  a 
solace  for  it,  or  anything  which  the  gospel  of  sense 
or  pride  could  hold  up  before  the  mind !  The 
depth  of  sorrow  is  that  of  loneliness,  and  loneli- 
ness of  soul  disposes  us  to  turn  for  that  society 


28  Cries  from  the  Depths, 

which  alone  prevents  us  from  being  isolated  and 
imprisoned  in  the  sense  of  loss. 

If  we  sink  a  deep  and  narrow  shaft  into  the 
earth,  and  go  down  to  the  bottom  of  it  in  the  day- 
time, and  turn  our  eyes  upward,  we  see  the  stars. 
The  great  heights  of  space  which  the  sunlight 
hides  are  revealed,  —  not  utterly  black,  but  em- 
blazoned with  a  few  of  the  jewels  which  speak  of 
the  Creative  Presence  and  Providence  in  far-off 
inconceivable  distances  of  the  Universe.  So  the 
loneliness  of  the  spirit  banishes  the  visions  of  the 
earth,  causes  the  deceptive  sunlight  to  part  its 
veil,  and  brings  us  into  mystic  correspondence 
with  the  Infinite  Presence,  the  deeper  lights  of 
his  providence.  Heaven  then  begins  to  shine 
upon  us  like  a  star,  far  off,  feeble  in  its  light, 
perhaps,  but  still  it  is  all  we  can  see  and  all  that 
we  care  to  see.  In  its  bereavement,  sunk  in  shafts 
of  sorrow,  the  heart  naturally  turns  to  God,  and 
the  lips  spontaneously  speak,  even  though  the 
phrases  be  formal  and  customary,  of  his  purposes 
and  his  power. 

The  depths  of  loneliness !  If  all  other  beings 
should  be  stricken  from  existence,  and  one  of  us 
should  be  left  sole  proprietor  of  this  world, — 
alone  in  space,  alone  in  the  sunlight,  alone  be- 
neath the  stars,  —  if  our  reason  did  not  reel  in 
such  awful  solitude,  could  we  think  of  anything 
else  but  the  religious  mystery  of  nature  and  of 
human  life  ?  Could  we  think  of  anything  else 
than  where  those  myriads  have  gone,  that  so  lately 


Cries  from  the  Depths,  29 

peopled  the  world,  and  of  what  Providence  had  in 
store  for  the  last  conscious  being  that  stood  be- 
neath his  heaven  ?  Now  by  this  present  plan  of 
existence  through  which  we  are  all  of  us,  at  times, 
suddenly  wrapt  in  the  veil  of  affliction,  and  virtu- 
ally so  far  removed  from  the  world  that  its  hum 
is  drowned,  and  its  interests  drop  off  from  us,  and 
we  stand  alone  by  a  bedside  from  which  our 
dearest  treasure  is  just  flitting  away,  or  by  a  new- 
made  grave  that  holds  a  beloved  and  reverend  form, 
what  is  Providence  doing  for  us  but  practically 
putting  us  in  complete  solitude,  so  that  our  world- 
liness  may  be  broken,  so  that  we  may  utter  the 
cry  of  the  lonely,  and  not  only  see  that  we  need 
his  presence,  but  pray  for  it,  and  find  it,  and 
rejoice. 

The  power  of  religion  is  manifest  when  God 
comes  to  us  by  a  cleansing  grace  in  answer  to  the 
cry  from  the  deep  of  sin ;  but  the  glory  of  relig- 
ion is  revealed  in  the  truths  and  the  comforts 
that  answer  the  supplications  which  burst  from 
the  deeps  of  grief.  For  it  is  only  then  that  the 
eternal  world  gleams  with  its  mystic  beauty,  shed- 
ding its  dim,  strange  light  upon  our  tears.  Then 
the  ear  is  open  and  hungry  for  the  whispers  of 
the  Gospel, — that  there  is  a  Providence  which 
counts  our  hairs,  and  suffers  not  a  single  child  of 
his  to  drop  into  the  abyss  of  night.  Then  the 
heart  is  prepared  for  the  wondrous  assurance  that 
love  is  not  limited  to  this  world,  but  continues  its 
plans  of  education  into  eternity,  and  maintains 


30  Cries  from  the  Depths, 

there  a  discipline  designed  for  good,  to  end  in 
celestial  bliss. 

O,  if  all  the  loneliness  of  sorrow  fulfilled  its 
purpose,  how  much  more  glorious  would  life  be! 
If  the  death  of  each  of  those  we  love  forced  from 
us  an  intenser  cry  towards  the  Infinite,  opened  to 
us  the  mystery  of  life  which  only  the  startled  heart 
can  worthily  feel,  and  disclosed  the  far-reaching 
vista  of  the  future  world !  What  a  life  would  this 
be  if  we  had  such  a  sense  of  the  nearness  of  God 
and  the  reality  of  the  world  to  come  and  the  pa- 
rental discipline  of  heaven  as  Christianity  would 
inspire,  and  as  the  souFs  agony  in  bereavement 
and  wrestle  with  the  problem  of  death  demand ! 
If  we  were  all  faithful  to  that  darkness  which  so 
dwarfs  the  ordinary  interests  of  this  world,  afflic- 
tion would  be  the  greatest  blessing.  In  exchange 
for  one  friend  on  earth  we  should  get  the  vision 
of  eternity,  the  splendor  of  divine  light,  a  hope 
sanctified  by  tears,  the  assurance  of  the  Infinite 
Presence. 

We  lose  immensely  by  our  unfaithfulness  to 
the  privilege  of  sorrow.  Cry  from  its  depths  for 
the  Lord,  and  his  comfort  will  be  ready.  The 
misery  of  our  griefs  is  that  we  make  no  cry.  We 
feel  the  pain  of  a  ruptured  fellowship  ;  we  sit  in 
darkness,  missing  the  precious  presence  borne 
away ;  we  struggle  with  our  anguish,  but  we  keep 
our  eyes  to  the  earth.  We  think  of  God,  perhaps, 
but  we  do  not  concentrate  all  the  energies  of 
grief  in  one  intense  prayer  for  his  help  and  peace. 


Cries  from  the  Depths,     '  3 1 

If  we  did,  if  we  brought  the  soul  into  the  sincer- 
est  religious  posture  and  state,  we  should  know, 
through  the  answer  to  that  cry,  that  the  beloved 
one  was  withdrawn  to  the  deeps  of  a  love  which 
this  world  could  not  reveal ;  and  if  the  soul  of 
the  departed  was  prepared  by  consecration,  we 
should  have  such  a  vision  of  its  blessed  work  and 
such  a  joy  in  the  spiritual  world,  that  this  world 
would  seem  glorious  only  as  the  vestibule  of  that ; 
and  if  the  soul  had  not  begun  here  devotion  to 
infinite  truth  and  sanctity,  we  should  have  the 
swieet  hope  in  that  Providence  which  fits  the  dis- 
cipline of  eternity  to  the  heart's  deepest  need. 

Religion  is  a  cry  from  the  depths.  The  noblest 
natures  among  men  have  been  religious  ones.  No 
soul  of  mighty  faculties,  of  sensibilities  strong 
enough  to  sound  the  depths,  fine  enough  to  feel 
the  heights,  of  this  world  mystery  and  grandeur, 
has  been  an  indifferent,  irreligious  soul.  They 
have  bowed  to  the  royalty  of  religious  truth,  either 
by  their  joyful  possession  of  it  or  by  their  cry  for 
it.  Only  the  surface  of  our  nature  can  nourish  an 
atheistic  plant ;  when  its  deeps  are  ploughed,  the 
latent  seed  of  faith  begins  to  germinate,  and  the 
promise  of  a  piety  vigorous  and  sinewy  as  the 
structure  of  the  oak  lifts  itself   above  the  soil. 

Religious  belief  is  an  assent  to  some  propo- 
sitions about  this  life  and  about  the  soul  and 
about  the  Infinite.  Religion  itself  is  a  cry  from 
the  heart's  deeps,  from  the  deeps  of  experience, 
upwards  to  a  living  God.     It  is  in  mercy  that 


32  Cries  from  the  Depths, 

God  stirs  those  deeps  of  feeling,  sinks  us  in  those 
depths  of  discipline,  so  that  our  belief  may  be- 
come experience,  so  that  our  words  of  opinion 
may  become  a  piercing  prayer.  There  is  none 
of  us  for  whom  the  Father  hath  not  thus,  in  some 
way,  opened  these  shafts  of  gloom  and  mystery. 
How  many  of  us  are  able  to  say  from  the  expe- 
rience of  the  intellect,  the  conscience,  or  the 
heart,  *'I  am  not  alone,  because  the  Father  is 
with  me." 

1855- 


The  Supremacy  of  Jesus,  33 


III. 

THE   SUPREMACY   OF   JESUS. 

"  Wherefore  God  also  hath  highly  exalted  him,  and  given  him 
a  name  which  is  above  every  name :  that  at  the  name  of  Jesus 
every  knee  should  bow,  of  things  in  heaven,  and  things  in  earth, 
and  things  under  the  earth."  —  Philij>J>ians  xi.  9,  lo. 

THIS  is  the  Christmas  day.  Standing  as  a 
memorial  of  Christ's  birth,  as  well  as  of 
his  resurrection,  it  is  a  double  Sabbath ;  and  it 
calls  upon  us  to  consider  some  theme  that  will 
naturally  unfold  to  us  the  supremacy  of  Jesus, 
which  makes  Christmas  the  sacred  festival  day  in 
the  world's  calendar. 

The  words  we  have  quoted  from  the  Apostle 
Paul  set  forth  the  supremacy  of  Christ  with  an 
eloquence  more  ample  and  a  rhythm  more  joyous 
than  any  other  passage  in  the  Bible,  and  so, 
of  course,  than  any  other  passage  in  literature. 
"  God  hath  given  him  a  name  which  is  above 
every  name."  Stand  back  in  history  near  the  sta- 
ble of  that  humble  inn  in  Bethlehem,  and  how 
strangely  those  words  sound  when  applied  to  that 
infant  whose  cradle  is  the  manger  of  oxen,  w^hose 
first  sleep  is  upon  some  common  straw !  It  is 
2*  c 


34  The  Supremacy  of  Jesus. 

true,  some  wise  men  from  the  East,  urged  by  an 
inexplicable  impulse,  are  entering  the  courtyard 
of  the  inn  to  bear  some  presents  to  a  mysterious 
prince  whose  nativity,  they  believed,  is  to  fall  on 
that  hour,  and  whose  birthplace  is  to  be  in  Beth- 
lehem. But  what  can  their  strange  respect,  of- 
fered in  frankincense  and  myrrh  beneath  that  shed, 
avail  to  lift  that  child  of  a  carpenter  above  all 
earthly  potentates?  Is  it  not  a  mockery  rather 
than  a  prophecy,  this  kneeling  of  dark-skinned 
astrologers  and  sages  among  Jewish  peasants  be- 
fore this  untitled  babe ;  a  scoff  at  his  impotence 
rather  than  an  augury  of  his  greatness  ?  In  pres- 
ence of  the  power,  splendor,  and  prejudices  of 
Jerusalem,  what  can  this  child  do,  with  only  a  few 
fishermen  to  help  him,  towards  lifting  his  name 
above  Moses  and  Abraham,  David  and  Isaiah  ? 

And  when  Paul  used  these  jubilant  sentences, 
sixty  years  after  that  birth  in  Bethlehem,  how  must 
they  have  sounded  to  the  Caesar  in  Rome,  whose 
name  was  truly  above  every  name,  within  whose 
empire  the  Christians  could  hardly  be  reckoned 
as  a  handful,  and  into  whose  palace  even  an  out- 
line of  the  biography  of  Christ  had  never  strayed. 
Yet  those  Oriental  sages  died,  and  we  know  not 
their  names ;  the  place  where  the  stable  stood 
cannot  be  detected  now  ;  every  building  of  Jeru- 
salem, even  the  Temple  that  flashed  so  vividly  in 
the  morning  light,  has  been  ploughed  into  the 
earth.  Rome  and  its  power,  the  Caesars  and  their 
pomp,  and  the  miUions  that  feared  them,  have 


The  Supremacy  of  Jesus.  35 

passed  away  like  a  dream,  while  history  has  been 
helping  us  to  interpret  the  great  sentence  of  the 
Apostle  concerning  Jesus,  that  "  God  hath  given 
him  a  name  which  is  above  every  name,"  which 
must  rise  still  higher,  and  be  supreme  in  human 
veneration  and  love. 

But  it  is  not  our  business  this  morning  to  dwell 
so  much  upon  the  fact  of  Christ's  supremacy,  as 
to  look  into  the  reasons  for  it.  Why  has  Provi- 
dence thus  exalted  him  so  highly  ?  It  is  not,  we 
may  be  sure,  by  any  arbitrary  methods,  but  be- 
cause of  an  essential  supremacy  in  the  nature,  the 
spirit,  and  the  work  of  Jesus.  He  could  not  be 
lifted  to  the  highest  place  if  he  were  not  really 
the  highest. 

First,  then,  we  say  that  Christ  is  supreme  ac- 
cording to  the  true  scale  of  honors,  because  his 
office  is  the  highest  one  that  has  ever  been  intrust- 
ed to  any  being  on  the  earth.  The  various  sects 
differ  very  widely  as  to  the  details  of  the  work  for 
which  Jesus  was  commissioned  ;  but  they  all  agree 
in  this,  that  he  came  to  do  what  men  most  needed 
to  have  done  for  them,  as  spiritual  and  immortal 
beings.  God  appoints  different  offices  for  his 
great  servants  in  society.  One  he  makes  to  be  a 
lawgiver,  another  to  be  a  poet,  another  a  great 
statesman,  another  a  discoverer  of  the  true  order 
of  the  heavens,  another  an  organizing  philanthro- 
pist, another  a  mechanical  inventor.  Outside  the 
circle  of  political  honors  and  dignities  which  hu- 
man votes  determine,  there  are  stations  and  hon- 


36  The  Supremacy  of  Jesus. 

ors  arranged  directly  by  the  hand  of  God,  and 
those  who  are  eminent  in  these  ranks  cannot  be 
robbed  of  their  true  dignity,  but  keep  it  for  all 
time.  Thus  a  monarch  who  simply  holds  his 
place  by  power,  and  for  his  own  aggrandizement 
and  pleasure,  is  forgotten  soon  after  his  successor 
mounts  the  throne ;  but  if  he  relates  himself  in 
any  way  to  the  deeper  nature  of  his  subjects,  by 
endeavoring  to  benefit  them,  by  striving  to  organ- 
ize in  his  realm  some  great  principles  of  liberty 
and  justice,  he  becomes  a  true  monarch,  his  soul 
as  well  as  his  body  rises  to  a  throne,  his  people 
recognize  his  name  as  something  higher  than  that 
of  a  mere  physical  ruler,  and  a  majesty  invests  it 
after  his  material  power  has  gone. 

So  it  is  impossible  to  take  away  the  authority  and 
splendor  from  those  men  whom  God  appoints  to 
great  offices.  In  all  earthly  circumstances  Queen 
Elizabeth  was  immensely  higher  than  Shakespeare, 
James  the  First  more  mighty  than  Bacon,  Charles 
the  Second  immeasurably  above  Milton,  the  Ro- 
man pope  incalculably  more  eminent  than  Coper- 
nicus ;  but  in  all  the  former  cases  the  greatness 
was  rather  of  circumstances,  and  so  the  most 
of  it  passed  away  when  death  changed  those 
circumstances.  In  the  latter  cases  the  great- 
ness was  that  of  providential  office  :  these  men 
were  bearers  of  new  truth,  they  stood  in  direct 
connection  with  the  intellectual  substance  and  the 
mental  needs  of  society;  and  so  death  dispels 
all  the  accidental  circumstances  which  may  have 


The  Supremacy  of  Jesus,  37 

shadowed  them,  and  in  history  they  rise  as  the 
mental  kings,  —  emperors  of  genius,  with  names 
higher  than  monarchs, — the  benefactors  of  the 
immortal  mind  of  man.  Just  according  to  their 
ranks  of  service,  the  eminence  of  their  providen- 
tial office,  do  names  mount  before  the  world's 
respect  and  veneration. 

Now,  brethren,  it  is  precisely  the  same  law, 
reaching  its  climax  of  potency,  that  accounts  for 
the  relations  between  that  humble  birth  at  Beth- 
lehem and  the  grand  prophecy  of  St.  Paul.  The 
highest  office  which  God  appoints  to  any  being 
on  the  earth  is  to  interpret  the  spiritual  relations 
of  our  life.  He  is  most  highly  endowed  who  has 
the  vision  that  pierces  deepest  into  moral  truth, 
sees  more  of  the  majesty  of  right,  unfolds  more  of 
the  spirit  of  love,  and  interprets  God  so  that  we 
feel  his  life  nearer  to  ours  and  see  everything  in 
the  light  of  his  providence.  When  such  insight, 
such  truth,  is  proclaimed  to  us,  our  inmost  and 
eternal  natures  are  touched,  and  we  acknowledge 
a  power  nearest  akin  to  God's,  and  before  which 
all  civil  majesties  are  of  no  account.  This  is  the 
relation  in  which  Christ  stands  to  the  whole  race. 
He  walked  in  Galilee  with  fishermen,  but  he 
talked  to  the  universal  soul.  He  sat  on  the  hill- 
side near  Capernaum,  but  his  sermon  was  preached 
to  all  future  generations  of  men.  He  conversed 
with  a  Samaritan  woman  at  Jacob's  well,  but  he 
whispered  there  the  truths  of  God's  spirituality 
and  of  inward  worship  into  the  ear  of  the  race. 


38  The  Supremacy  of  yes  us. 

He  narrated  a  story  to  a  Jewish  lawyer,  but  it 
was  the  world  that  hearkened  and  treasured  the 
picture  of  the  good  Samaritan  as  the  ideal  of 
duty.  He  partook  of  a  simple  meal  with  twelve 
humble  friends ;  and  the  penitent,  the  bowed,  the 
weary,  the  bereaved,  of  all  nations  and  outstretch- 
ing centuries  were  dimly  ranged  around  that 
board.  His  office  was  the  highest  to  scatter 
superstitions  that  hung  between  the  heavens  and 
human  eyes,  to  quicken  the  religious  sentiment 
of  the  world  by  his  breath,  to  bring  the  races  to- 
gether in  a  common  worship  of  the  Father,  and  to 
publish  such  a  mercy  hidden  in  the  skies,  that 
penitence  should  be  quickened  in  the  hearts  of 
men,  and  a  filial  life  take  the  place  of  selfishness 
and  sin.  What  now  was  the  position  of  a  Herod 
and  a  Nero  in  the  world,  that  they  deserved  to 
live,  or  could  live,  before  the  rising  power  of  a 
soul  with  such  an  office  ?  What  could  they  do 
but  die  in  their  sensualism,  earth-born  creatures, 
with  power  related  only  to  human  muscles  and 
fear,  —  what  could  they  do  but  have  their  names 
pushed  out  into  darkness  by  the  spreading  power 
of  this  new  Spirit,  who  spoke  to  the  eternal  ele- 
ment in  humanity?  There  is  nothing  strange 
about  this  culmination  of  Christ  in  the  meridian 
of  history.  He  has  risen  to  the  first  place  be- 
cause he  is  the  first  in  office ;  and  God  has  ex- 
alted him  because,  by  every  law  of  truth,  he 
belongs  in  the  zenith  of  his  vast  providence. 
Again,  the  work  which  Jesus  has  done  is  a 


The  Supremacy  of  Jesus,  39 

work  of  such  vast  proportions  that  his  name  is 
naturally  lifted  by  it  to  the  highest  place.  Men 
revere  their  practical  benefactors.  The  mind  that 
originates  and  carries  a  new  law  which  stands 
between  the  people  and  oppression,  or  that  or- 
ganizes a  new  institution  of  benevolence,  or  that 
gives  an  impulse  to  a  new  movement  for  popular 
rights,  is  the  largest  practical  benefactor  of  men, 
and  is  recognized  as  such. 

In  this  light  how  does  the  work  of  Christ 
appear  ?  Putting  ourselves  back  in  his  position,j 
and  looking  down  through  history,  what  do  we 
see  rising  up  over  this  earth,  to  attest  the  practical 
power  of  his  life?  Behind  him  is  the  various 
pomp  of  heathenism, — the  luxury  of  Babylon,  the 
splendor  of  Nineveh,  the  grotesque  greatness  of 
Egypt, —  all  set  in  relief  against  the  little  they  had 
done  for  the  nobler  nature  and  the  dearest  inter- 
ests of  man.  Behind  him  was  the  rich  culture  of 
Greece,  whose  literature,  the  resource  of  the  in- 
tellectual, breathed  nothing  in  behalf  of  the  strug- 
gling masses,  nothing  to  waken  immortal  hopes 
in  the  ignoble  poor,  and  whose  architecture  was 
distinguished  by  no  asylum  or  charity  school. 
Around  him  was  the  vigorous  power  of  Rome, 
that  knew  how  to  organize  the  state,  how  to  build 
the  palace  and  the  forum,  the  coliseum  and  the 
theatre,  but  not  how  to  speak  to,  or  legislate  for, 
the  finer  wants  and  the  eternal  structure  of  hu- 
manity. But  before  him,  called  up  at  the  bidding 
of  his  breath,  springing  up  in  the  pathway  of  his 


40  The  Supremacy  of  Jesus, 

words,  which  he  scatters  off  into  the  centuries, 
see  what  new  institutions  rise,  —  homes  more 
sacred  and  refined ;  churches  whose  spires  point 
in  every  land  to  a  common  father ;  hospitals  in 
which  obscure  sufferers  find  wise  and  gentle  care  ; 
institutions  of  beneficence  that  enfold  the  blind 
and  the  lame,  the  impotent  intellect  and  the  smit- 
ten frame,  hopeless  poverty  and  orphaned  minds, 
in  the  embrace  of  a  charity  before  unorganized 
on  the  globe.  Laws  begin  to  relax  their  stern- 
Jj^ness,  manners  to  catch  a  kindlier  courtesy,  sci' 
ence  to  glow  with  richer  hues,  literature  to  swell 
with  nobler  purposes.  And  see  how  the  evils 
and  hardships  of  the  world  begin  to  stand  out 
in  a  new  light !  How  pain  begins  to  be  con- 
quered in  a  spirit  higher  and  sweeter  than  the 
Stoic  taught ;  how  unbelief  is  confronted  with 
truth  that  charms  its  doubts  away ;  how  sick- 
rooms are  visited  with  tones,  sweet  as  they  are 
mystic,  "  Be  of  good  cheer,  I  have  overcome  the 
world " ;  how  graves  are  illuminated  with  the 
words  he  uttered,  that  seem  to  have  floated  up- 
ward and  inwoven  themselves  in  the  starlight  that 
arches  over  the  cemeteries  of  Christendom,  "  In 
my  Father's  house  are  many  mansions";  and  how 
bereaved  ones  hear  a  call,  as  from  one  bearing  the 
peace,  as  well  as  authority,  of  the  skies,  "  Come 
unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden, 
and  I  will  give  you  rest "  !  Such,  in  the  light  of 
history,  are  Christ's  relations  to  humanity.  Every- 
thing noblest  in  our  institutions^  highest  in  our 


The  Supremacy  of  Jesus.  41 

public  principles,  most  just  and  noble  in  our  law, 
sweetest  in  private  character,  most  elevating  in 
our  ideas  and  hopes,  can  be  seen  to  radiate  and 
diffuse  itself  over  the  best  portion  of  the  earth, 
from  his  personality.  Strike  him  out  from  his 
few  months*  ministry  in  Palestine,  and  all  these 
elements  and  facts  which  vivify  society  and  enno- 
ble our  life  disappear,  as  the  rays  of  light  would 
vanish  if  the  sun  should  be  quenched.  There  is 
nothing  so  practical  as  the  Christian  religion; 
nothing  that  has  done  the  work  in  this  world,  so 
controlled  the  forms  and  changed  the  spirit  of 
society,  as  that  being  whose  humble  mission  the 
four  biographies  in  the  New  Testament  reveal. 
If  we  think  the  influence  of  Christianity  has  been 
slight  in  the  world  (judging  men  by  its  own  stand- 
ard, it  has  been  slight  enough),  compare  our 
condition  in  New  England  with  Rome  in  the 
time  of  Nero,  and  think  what  humanity  would 
have  been  now,  if  left  solely  to  the  heathen  prin- 
ciples that  were  then  striking  their  canker  to  the 
heart  of  the  mightiest  empire  this  globe  has  ever 
borne.  All  the  difference  between  Rome  then 
and  New  England  now,  all  the  difference  be- 
tween what  humanity  would  have  been  in  eighteen 
centuries  more  of  such  drifts  towards  corruption, 
and  what  it  is  now,  and  what  its  hopes  are  now, 
is  to  be  credited  to  the  work  of  Jesus,  to  his 
personal  influence  upon  the  world.  Wherever  a 
church  is  built  to  the  Universal  Father,  the  hand 
of  Christ  is  laid  in  consecration  upon  the  altar; 


42  The  Supremacy  of  Jcsics, 

wherever  a  bloody  law  is  expunged  from  the  stat- 
ute-book of  a  people,  the  finger  of  Jesus  has 
passed  in  mercy  across  its  code ;  wherever  sounds 
a  rebuke  of  slavery,  a  condemnation  of  war,  a  plea 
for  the  poor,  an  appeal  for  an  unselfish  cause, — 
in  whatever  accents,  speech,  or  emphasis  we  listen 
to  the  music  of  the  common  brotherhood,  it  is  the 
onward,  swelling  chorus,  reverberating  through  the 
arches  and  corridors  of  centuries,  to  accompany 
and  sustain  that  perfect  melody  that  rose  eighteen 
hundred  years  ago,  in  Palestine,  like  incense  from 
the  heart  of  Christ. 

Where  then  is  another  name  that  can  stand  so 
high?  Must  it  not,  of  necessity,  rise  over  all 
others,  as  the  world's  greatest  practical  benefac- 
tor,—  source  of  its  best  institutions,  author  of  its 
noblest  liberties,  purifier  of  its  homes,  quickener 
of  its  hopes,  inspirer  of  its  highest  happiness, 
regenerator  of  its  loves  ? 

I  have  taken  thus  far  a  more  outward  and  cir- 
cumstantial method  than  is  usual,  to  show  the 
work  of  Jesus  in  the  world,  because  too  many 
minds  fail  to  see  how  the  practical  character  of 
Christianity  can  be  proved  by  items  and  by  his- 
torical methods,  just  as  the  value  of  the  Decla- 
ration of  Independence  and  the  importance  of 
Jefferson's  life  can  be  proved  by  the  republican 
structure  and  vast  prosperity  of  this  country  now. 
But  there  is  a  third  point,  higher  than  the  other 
two,  which  proves  the  supremacy  of  Jesus,  and  to 
which  we  must  give  the  highest  place, —  the  spirit 


The  Supremacy  of  yesus,  43 

he  manifested.  His  office  as  a  teacher  was  most 
eminent;  his  work  as  practical  benefactor  has 
been  broadest ;  but  the  spirit  he  exhibited  is  the 
crowning  glory  of  his  mission  and  the  final  justifi- 
cation of  his  supremacy. 

Humanity,  brethren,  is  above  nature.  A  human 
frame  is  a  greater  piece  of  mechanism,  a  higher 
expression  of  creative  skill,  than  the  solar  system. 
More  resources  of  design,  more  intricate  harmo- 
nies are  displayed  in  it,  than  the  orbits  and  in- 
terplay of  the  planets  disclose.  And  then  the 
soul  of  man  is  infinitely  above  the  outward  world 
as  an  expression,  or  setting  forth,  of  God.  And 
so  the  clearest  revelation  of  what  is  divine  must 
come  through  humanity.  It  cannot  be  written  in 
the  sky;  it  cannot  be  uttered  in  mysterious  ora- 
cles breaking  up  from  the  earth  or  dropping 
through  the  air  ;  it  cannot  be  borne  on  flying 
leaves  written  with  God's  finger,  or  drawn,  as  the 
first  stern  code  was,  upon  tables  of  stone.  The 
human  soul  is  God's  highest  creation  and  noblest 
organ,  and  his  clearest  revelation  must  be  through 
that,  and  through  the  noblest  part  of  the  human 
soul.  Intellect  is  not  our  highest  endowment. 
Imagination  is  not  our  crowning  faculty.  Every 
form  of  genius  is  inferior  to  conscience,  to  the 
heart,  to  faith,  sympathy,  and  love.  "Though  I 
speak  with  the  tongues  of  men  and  of  angels,  and 
though  I  have  the  gift  of  prophecy  and  under- 
stand all  mysteries  and  all  knowledge,  and  have 
not   charity,    I    am    nothing ;    I   am    become   as 


44  27^^  Supremacy  of  Jesus, 

sounding  brass  and  a  tinkling  cymbal."  If  heaven 
is  to  open  to  us,  it  must  be  through  the  deep, 
warm,  holy  sentiments  of  humanity. 

Here  Christ  is  highest.  Thus  his  name  vaults 
over  every  name.  Those  qualities  that  make  our 
humanity  translucent  with  beams  from  the  Infi- 
nite,—  perfect  moral  truthfulness,  piercing  through 
all  mists  of  passion  to  what  is  pure,  complete  con- 
formity of  conscience  and  will,  undoubting  faith 
in  God,  unfaltering  heroism,  prayerful  reliance 
upon  the  Infinite,  and  love  gushing  full  and  stead- 
ily towards  men  from  a  hallowed  heart,  —  were  not 
these  elements  of  the  soul  of  Jesus? — these  his  real 
transfiguration  as  our  spiritual  eyes  behold  him, 
in  splendor  more  divine  than  that  which  invested 
his  form  on  Mount  Tabor,  as  though  his  nature 
were  woven  of  the  pure  light  which  is  the  effluence 
of  God  ?  What  name  offers  itself  against  him  in 
challenge  of  his  spiritual  supremacy  ?  In  meekness 
and  in  majesty,  in  strength  and  in  trust,  in  service 
and  in  royalty,  in  pity  and  in  searching  severity, 
in  love  for  man  and  in  clear  devotion  to  his  high- 
est good,  in  relation  to  all  or  any  of  the  qualities 
that  interpret  the  compassion,  the  justice,  and  the 
holiness  of  God,  or  that  reveal  the  spiritual  beauty 
and  worth  of  man,  what  name  before  Jesus  rises 
to  any  rivalry  ?  What  name  since,  that  is  eminent 
among  the  saints  and  the  illustrious  of  the  world's 
heroes  of  goodness,  does  not  count  it  the  highest 
glory  to  be  considered  his  disciple  ?  His  name 
must  be  highest  because  the  desert,  and  his  inter- 


The  Supremacy  of  yesiis.  45 

view  with  Nicodemus,  and  his  merciful  healings, 
and  his  nights  of  prayer,  and  his  brotherly  com- 
munion with  the  lowly,  and  his  quickening  com- 
passion for  the  outcast,  and  his  humility  at  the  last 
supper,  and  his  lonely  fidelity  in  Gethsemane,  and 
his  spiritual  royalty  before  Pilate,  and  his  patience 
in  buffetings,  and  his  last  petition  for  murderers  on 
the  cross,  are  the  points  in  human  history  where 
the  highest  qualities  belonging  to  the  Divine  ir- 
radiate our  nature,  —  hostility  to  evil,  loyalty  to 
goodness,  pity  for  the  fallen,  and  love  conquering 
all  malice  and  revenge.  His  name  is  the  highest 
as  the  personal  utterance  of  what  is  highest  as  ^ 
qualities  in  the  spiritual  world  and  in  the  nature 
of  God. 

How  poor,  alas,  are  all  such  analytic  methods 
to  set  forth  the  supremacy  of  Jesus  in  the  world 
of  humanity !  It  needs  such  utterance  as  great 
music  gives  in  that  oratorio  which  interprets  the 
world's  need  of  him,  his  glory,  his  passion,  and  his 
victory.  The  gross  darkness  that  preceded  him 
is  there  fitly  suggested  to  the  mind.  His  name 
— Wonderful,  Counsellor,  a  mighty  God,  the  Prince 
of  Peace  —  is  there  foretold  with  a  grandeur  some- 
what adequate  to  the  mighty  fulfilment  of  those 
words  in  history.  The  deep  calm  from  which  he 
entered  the  world,  and  the  sweet  melorl,y  born 
with  him  into  this  stormy  life,  —  yet  to  subdue 
all  raging  and  discord  to  the  keynote  of  good- 
will to  men,  —  are  typified  in  the  symphony  that 
prepares  the  ear  for  the  angels'  song.     His  earthly 


46  The  Supremacy  of  yesus, 

state  —  "despised  and  rejected  of  men,  a  man  of 
sorrows  and  acquainted  with  grief"  —  finds  some 
sympathetic  utterance  in  those  pathetic  cadences 
that  come  as  from  the  genius  of  music  singing 
with  streaming  tears.  The  heart's  need  of  his 
peace,  based  on  the  inmost  fellowship  with  God, 
is  told,  as  no  unsung  eloquence  can  tell  it,  in  that 
appeal,  "  Come  unto  him,  all  ye  that  labor  and  he 
will  give  you  rest,"  which  seems  to  float  out  from 
some  pardoned  Magdalen  or  comforted  mother's 
heart  at  the  feet  of  Jesus,  that  has  felt  her  sin  or 
sorrow  melt  into  mystic  quiet  at  the  touch  of  his 
finger  upon  the  throbbing  soul.  The  jubilant  faith, 
"  I  know  that  my  Redeemer  liveth,"  can  have  no 
such  clothing  as  the  song  which  sweeps  up  from 
a  basis  of  sadness  to  a  tone  of  triumph  over  the 
grave  ;  and  the  prophetic  victory  of  Jesus  cannot 
worthily  break  into  speech  except  through  organ 
and  orchestra  and  chorus,  that  lift  up  on  that  bil- 
lowy hallelujah  the  truth  that  "  he  shall  reign  for- 
ever and  ever,  King  of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords." 
Where  is  the  name  that  can  link  itself  with  that 
music  of  the  Messiah  if  Christ  be  forgotten  ?  It 
would  be  too  glorious,  too  sublime,  an  anomaly  in 
this  world,  if  it  were  not  the  Christmas  anthem, 
the  utterance  of  the  religious  needs  and  glory  of 
man,  and  the  clothing  in  melody  and  harmony  of 
his  perfection,  whom  God  hath  exalted  over  all 
the  race,  "  to  whom  every  knee  shall  bow." 

Ah,  yes !  how  truly  does  every  knee  bow  to 
him  in  the  larger  and  vaguer  sense  !     His  name  is 


The  Supremacy  of  yesus,  47 

highest  because  we  worship  no  other  finite  name 
with  inmost  satisfaction.  Outwardly  we  worship 
other  things.  We  strive  for  money ;  we  pay  re- 
spect to  conquerors  and  statesmen,  and  men  of 
station,  and  rich  men,  and  selfish  men  of  genius. 
But  in  our  best  moods,  in  our  silent  hours,  when  we 
are  most  truly  and  deeply  men,  we  adore  goodness, 
we  enthrone  self-sacrifice,  we  pay  our  heartiest 
homage  to  the  spirit  of  love,  we  worship  Jesus 
Christ. 

In  the  retreats  of  every  heart  there  is  one  holi- 
est district,  inclosing  a  chapel  wherein  the  Cruci- 
fied receives  a  devotion  that  we  accord  to  no  other 
name.  And  by  this  secret  reverence,  this  per- 
sonal and  unspoken  love,  we  are  called  upon  to 
make  that  name  the  highest  name  in  daily  prac- 
tice, to  walk  through  our  duties,  to  live  in  our 
homes,  to  feel  toward  God,  to  go  out  among  the 
thick  miseries  of  the  world  obedient  to  our  inmost 
loyalty,  proclaiming  that  name  as  highest  in  our 
temper  and  integrity,  our  piety,  our  gratitude,  our 
denial  of  passion  and  selfishness,  our  scattered 
charities  and  radiant  love.  That  is  the  way  to 
honor  the  nativity,  that  is  the  way  to  have  a  con- 
stant Christmas  in  the  soul. 

Bear  with  me  a  moment  longer,  while  I  refer  to 
the  magnificent  comprehensiveness  of  St.  Paul's 
closing  expression  in  the  text,  "  that  at  the  name 
of  Jesus  every  knee  should  bow."  This  is  to 
be  the  complete  proof  of  his  supremacy  ;  all  souls 
will  confess  it  at  last.     How  glorious  seems  the 


48  The  Supremacy  of  yesiis. 

hope  for  man,  for  every  man,  in  the  light  of  that 
cross  from  which  even  murderers  were  forgiven ! 
That  Hallelujah  Chorus  which  a  human  genius 
conceived,  is  it  not  to  be  swept  upward  yet  from  a 
choir  which  excludes  no  creature  born  of  God's 
spirit  for  a  life  of  good  ? '  Are  the  Christmas 
hopes  and  the  Christmas  prophecies  to  be  cheated 
of  their  grandest  fulfilment  ?  Is  any  soul  to  be 
shut  out  forever  from  the  adoration  of  Jesus  and 
the  love  of  God  ?  The  old  Rabbis  had  a  poetic 
picture  of  a  day  yet  to  come  in  the  eternal  courts, 
when  the  just  should  praise  the  Almighty,  so 
that 

"  Will  ever  high  and  higher  be  borne  and  swept  along 
Heaven's  azure  vaulted  roofs  the  full  concert  of  song  ; 
Then  will  that  mighty  voice  of  jubilee  be  heard, 
Until  from  end  to  end  the  spacious  world  is  stirred." 

Yes,  and  just  as  its  echo  ceases  in  heaven,  their 
fable  runs  that  a  strange  "  Amen  "  comes  faindy 
to  the  throne  as  from  infinite  depths,  and  Jehovah 
asks  from  whence  it  issues.  The  angels  veil  their 
faces,  and  reply  that  it  is  from  those  who  knew 
not,  while  living,  the  heavenly  law.  And  then 
God 

"  Will  give  the  golden  key  from  heaven^s  crystal  floors, 
Which  opens  with  a  touch  hell's  forty  thousand  doors, 
And  Michael,  mighty  prince,  will  fly  with  it  amain, 
On  mercy's  errand  swift,  and  all  the  angelic  train. 
Hell's  forty  thousand  gates  will  open  at  his  word. 
Its  narrow  chambers  deep  with  expectation  stirred. 
The  prisoners  he  will  draw  from  dungeons  where  they  lay, 
And  extricating  lift  from  the  deep  and  miry  clay,  — 
Will  wash  and  cleanse  their  wounds  where  they  have  plagu&i  been, 
And  clothe  in  garments  white  and  beautiful  and  clean  j 


The  Supremacy  of  Jesus,  49 

And  taking  by  the  hand  will  lead  them  to  the  gate 
Of  Paradise,  where  they  must  for  a  moment  wait ; 
Till  there  with  leave  brought  in,  they  fall  upon  their  face, 
And  worship  God,  and  praise,  and  magnify  his  grace  ; 
While  all  that  had  before  their  places  round  the  throne 
Will  give  new  thanks  for  this  new  mercy  he  has  shown,! 
And  by  new  voices  swelled,  and  higher  and  more  strong, 
Ring  through  the  vaults  of  heaven  the  full  consent  of  song." 

Such  must  be  the  final  issue,  yet,  on  some  far  off 
morning  in  eternity,  of  that  song  which  the  angels 
rolled  over  Bethlehem  as  the  keynote  of  the  Gos- 
pel, —  "  Glory  to  God."  Such  must  be  the  ulti-r 
mate  attestation  of  Paul's  prophecy,  "Where- 
fore God  hath  highly  exalted  him,  and  given  him 
a  name  which  is  above  every  name :  that  at  the 
name  of  Jesus  every  name  should  bow,  of  things 
in  heaven,  and  things  in  earth,  and  things  under 
the  earth." 


1853. 


--^> 


50  Christian  Thought  of 


IV. 

CHBISTIAN  THOUGHT  OF  THE  FUTURE  LIFE. 

"  And  as  we  have  bome  the  image  of  the  earthy,  we  shall  also 
bear  the  image  of  the  heavenly."  —  i  Corinthians  xv.  49. 

THIS  verse  is  a  fair  sample  and  illustration 
of  the  allusions  in  the  New  Testament  to 
the  future  life.  There  is  no  argument  in  the 
great  documents  of  our  religion  for  an  eternal 
existence.  The  early  Christians  considered  it, 
not  as  a  doctrine,  but  as  a  fact.  Argument, 
scientific  and  moral  proofs,  were  not  needed 
by  them ;  for  to  their  faith  —  yes,  with  the 
earliest  ones,  to  their  vision  —  the  tomb  itself  had 
spoken,  the  sepulchre  had  confessed  that  it  was 
only  the  gateway  to  another  life.  There  was  an 
Easter  in  their  calendar,  the  royal  day  of  their 
ecclesiastical  year.  And  by  the  three  great  festi- 
vals —  Good  Friday,  when  the  spirit  of  Jesus 
sank  into  the  shadow ;  the  Resurrection  Sunday, 
when  he  re-entered  the  world  through  the  door  of 
Joseph's  tomb ;  and  Ascension  day,  which  saw  him 
fade  into  the  sky  —  the  three  spheres  of  existence 
were  knit  together  as  parts  of  one  stupendous 
fact,  districts  of  the  great  territory  of  life,  —  this 


the  Future  Life,  51 

earth,  and  the  abyss,  and  the  upper  world  of  light 
and  love. 

Especially  do  the  references  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment to  the  future  life  show  that  the  world  to 
come  was  as  real  to  the  earliest  believers  as  the 
present  world.  How  striking  those  references 
are,  —  so  positive,  yet  so  indefinite,  so  healthy,  so 
free  from  all  fanatical  heat  and  fancy,  and  yet  so 
burdened  with  the  sublimity  and  mystery  that 
belong  to  the  idea  of  immortality. 

We  often  say  that  the  revelation  of  the  future 
life  is  the  peculiarity  of  Christianity.  And  yet 
how  meagre  are  the  contributions  of  the  New 
Testament  to  our  acquaintance  with  the  world  to 
come  !  The  whole  spirit  of  those  writings  is  that 
our  souls  are  our  true  substance,  that  the  mortal 
body  is  only  a  film,  that  this  earth  is  simply  the 
stepping-stone  to  a  great  existence  under  other 
conditions  and  in  a  spiritual  sphere  :  but  they  do 
not  gratify  our  curiosity  ;  they  show  us  nothing 
of  the  details  of  that  life ;  they  point  to  it  as 
though  a  curtain  hangs  before  it,  beyond  which 
the  true  life  of  the  soul  begins,  but  through  which 
it  is  not  permitted  unto  any  mortal  eye  to  pierce. 
**  In  my  Father's  house  are  many  mansions ;  I 
go  to  prepare  a  place  for  you."  "I  will  not 
drink  henceforth  of  this  fruit  of  the  vine  until  that 
day  when  I  drink  it  new  with  you  in  my  Father's 
kingdom."  "For  we  know  that  if  our  earthly 
house  of  this  tabernacle  were  dissolved,  we  have 
a  building  of  God,  a  house  not  made  with  hands. 


52  Christian  Thought  of 

eternal  in  the  heavens."  "  Eye  hath  not  seen, 
nor  ear  heard,  neither  have  entered  into  the 
heart  of  man  the  things  which  God  hath  prepared 
for  them  that  love  Him."  "This  corruptible 
must  put  on  incorruption."  "  As  we  have  borne 
the  image  of  the  earthy,  we  shall  also  bear  the 
image  of  the  heavenly."  So  calm  and  positive 
are  the  affirmations  of  Jesus  and  the  Apostles 
concerning  the  life  to  come.  They  use  substan- 
tial language,  and  vigorous  imagery  of  buildings 
and  garments,  of  wine  and  society  and  ineffable 
joy,  as  though  real  life  is  to  begin  when  all  that 
we  suppose  real  here  is  dropped  away. 

This  is  the  point  to  which  I  would  fix  your  at- 
tention now, — the  true  Christian  habit  of  thought 
as  to  the  future.  How  definite  should  it  be? 
What  conditions  should  it  attribute  to  the  future 
world  ?  What  methods  of  being  and  occupations 
should  enter  into  our  imaginations  of  it,  and  our 
anticipations  of  its  experience  ?  All  such  ques- 
tions as  these,  you  may  say,  belong  to  the  region 
of  speculation,  mere  speculation,  and  can  do  no 
possible  good  in  being  seriously  treated.  But  I 
say  no.  Our  views  of  the  future  life  are  thin  and 
unpractical  and  impotent  because  we  do  keep  off 
from  all  speculation  about  it.  How  poor,  almost 
barren,  has  the  Christian  imagination  been  in 
its  conceptions,  I  will  not  say  of  the  details,  but 
of  the  principles  and  the  objects  of  that  future 
world !  The  imagery  of  the  judgment-seat  of 
Christ,  which  the  New  Testament  in  one  or  two 


the  Future  Life.  53 

instances  suggests,  has  been  expanded  and  verified 
by  the  rhetoric  and  poetry  of  the  Church,  so  that 
it  has  filled  up  all  the  space  into  which  the  eye  of 
the  spirit  can  pierce  beyond  the  grave,  so  that  a 
solemn  gloom  rests  over  the  world  to  come.  Or 
when  the  timid  fancy  has  ventured  at  all  into  pic- 
tures or  conjectures  of  the  occupations  of  that 
sphere,  it  has  not  strayed  beyond  the  hints  of  the 
Apocalypse,  of  the  songs  of  the  hundred  and 
forty-four  thousand  elders,  and  the  harps  and  the 
golden  phials  full  of  odors,  and  the  white  robes, 
and  the  palms  in  their  hands.  The  conception 
of  heaven  as  an  immeasurable  singing-school, 
and  its  business  a  never-ending  and  monotonous 
chant  directly  in  the  blaze  of  God's  holiness,  has 
little  to  attract  the  hearty  thought  of  strong 
men  towards  it ;  and  I  seriously  believe  that  it  is 
the  poverty  of  imagination  in  the  Church  as  to 
the  conditions,  the  cjuties,  and  the  joys  of  the 
future  world,  which  accounts  in  a  large  measure 
for  the  little  care  there  is  about  it,  —  for  the  un- 
dertone of  feeling  which  I  know  exists  in  many 
breasts,  that  an  eternal  life,  according  to  the 
modes  of  presentation  in  the  Church,  is  not 
worth  having  and  would  be  insufferably  tedious. 

Now  as  to  external  details,  it  may  do  no  good, 
and  therefore  we  may  have  no  right  to  speculate  — 
I  mean  as  to  where  the  spiritual  world  is,  whether 
we  shall  have  visible  organizations  or  not,  and 
what  sized  beings  we  shall  be.  But  as  to  the 
essential  conditions  and  occupations  of  that  world, 


54  Christian  Thought  of 

I  hold  that  we  have  a  right  to  think  about  it,  and 
that  we  ought  to,  and  that  very  much  of  the  prac- 
tical power  of  the  future  life  over  us  consists  in 
the  kind  of  speculation  we  entertain,  the  quality 
of  the  musings  we  indulge.  If  we  think  of  it 
only  now  and  then  as  a  state  where  final  retribu- 
tion shall  be  executed  upon  souls  for  their  good 
or  evil  in  this  life,  it  will  simply  affect  us  now 
and  then  with  a  spasm  of  fear,  but  our  inmost 
reverence  will  not  be  stimulated  and  fed.  If  we 
conceive  of  it  as  a  vast  stretching  kingdom  of 
haze  off  beyond  our  horizon,  where  ghosts  live,  it 
will  have  an  influence  upon  our  lives  about  as 
great  as  such  an  expanse  of  mist  would  have 
upon  the  orbit  of  the  solid  earth.  We  must  make 
it  in  our  imagination  what  the  spirit  of  Christianity 
would  have  us  make  it,  —  a  world  for  the  exercise 
of  the  great  powers  of  our  humanity,  and  there- 
fore a  world  more  real,  more  intense,  more  vital 
and  moral,  than  this  plane  of  existence.  We 
must  think  of  its  occupations  and  business  as 
appealing  to  and  attesting  the  distinguishing 
faculties  of  our  manhood  and  womanhood ;  then 
it  will  be  a  reality,  a  glorious,  solemn,  and  prac- 
tical reality  to  us. 

"  As  we  have  borne  the  image  of  the  earthy,  we 
shall  also  bear  the  image  of  the  heavenly  "  \  this 
is  the  foundation  fact  on  which  our  conceptions 
of  the  future  must  be  built.  We  know  what 
the  image  of  the  earthy  is.  It  is  a  visible  and 
physical  organization ;  it  is  a  set  of  instruments 


the  Future  Life.  55 

for  the  soul, —  senses,  bones,  nerves,  muscles,  and 
blood,  which  serve  to  bring  it  into  communion 
with  truth,  and  which  also  claim  the  care  and  ser- 
vice of  the  soul,  to  supply  their  needs  and  to 
increase  their  pleasure.  We  shall  bear  the  image 
of  the  heavenly.  What  does  this  mean  but  that 
our  inmost  nature,  that  which  makes  us  children 
of  the  Infinite,  shall  have  an  organization  which 
shall  be  the  very  form  and  image  of  itself,  —  not 
physical,  not  putting  it  in  material  connection 
with  material  things,  and  therefore  not  enslaving 
it  to  physical  objects,  but  an  organization  bring- 
ing it  directly  in  contact  with  eternal  things  and 
the  laws  of  the  spiritual  universe.  To  bear  the 
image  of  the  heavenly,  is  it  not  to  have  our  true 
humanity  glorified  and  ripened,  so  that  we  shall 
not  be  composite  creatures,  half  earth  and  half 
soul,  but  wholly  of  the  substance  of  that  which 
makes  us  kindred  with  God,  and  thus  constantly  in 
relation  with  the  essences  of  things  and  subject 
more  intensely  to  the  moral  dominion  of  the 
Creator  ?  And  this  heavenly  nature,  is  it  not  our 
faculty  of  intelligence,  our  social  capacities,  our 
attraction  towards  duty  and  delight  in  it,  our  love 
of  good,  and  the  ability  to  serve  it,  and  to  revere 
and  love  God,  the  centre  and  fountain  of  it? 
And  if  we  conceive  of  the  future  life  as  the  sphere 
for  the  exercise  and  training  of  this  heavenly 
nature,  what  momentous  reality  invests  it,  how 
sublime  and  practical  the  conception  of  it  be- 
comes ! 


56  Christian  Thought  of 

Think,  my  friends,  how  httle  of  what  makes 
you  a  man  is  tasked  or  developed  in  this  world, 
and  simply  because  you  bear  the  image  of  the 
earthly.  Business  activity  absorbs  a  great  por- 
tion of  the  time,  and  that  is  related  to  the  lower 
physical  nature.  It  is  for  the  purpose  of  securing 
a  living,  it  is  not  for  life.  It  is  to  procure  a  house 
to  shelter  the  body  against  physical  forces  ;  it  is 
to  obtain  food  to  keep  up  the  partnership  between 
the  earthly  frame  and  the  heavenly  nature ;  it  is 
to  secure  a  position  in  society  according  to  the 
conventional  estimates  that  have  grown  out  of 
wealth  and  leisure  and  blood,  all  of  which  are 
incidents  to  that  image  of  the  earthy  which  we 
bear  now.  It  is  really  surprising,  it  is  over- 
whelming, how  much  of  the  activity  and  the 
wasting  toil  on  this  planet,  the  fatigue  of  the 
muscles  in  physical  drudgery,  the  constant  cun- 
ning of  the  brain  in  schemes  of  commerce,  the 
toil  of  pens  upon  ledgers  and  accounts,  the  wear 
and  tear  of  the  mind  in  the  details  of  great 
professions,  the  vast  proportion  of  that  industry 
that  whitens  the  sea  with  ships,  and  covers  the 
land  with  houses,  and  fills  the  air  with  the  hum 
of  work,  and  covers  the  soil  with  busy  husband- 
men, and  tires  the  bodies  and  brains  of  the  vast 
majority  on  this  planet  every  day,  so  that  they  are 
glad  at  night  to  drop  into  sleep  as  the  richest 
boon  of  Providence, —  how  vast  a  proportion  of 
all  this  is  demanded  simply  by  our  fleshly  organ- 
ization, has  scarcely  any  connection  with  our  real 


the  Future  Life,  57 

humanity,  but  is  the  tax  of  exertion  and  weariness 
for  the  gift  of  this  image  of  the  earthly  in  which 
we  are  created  here. 

Suppose  that  your  business  relations  should  be 
stripped  away  from  you,  —  your  ties  to  the  shop, 
your  calls  to  the  counter,  your  duties  at  the  ledger, 
your  name  and  fame  and  responsibilities  on  State 
Street,  or  your  position  in  your  profession,  —  how 
much  would  seem  to  be  rent  away,  and  yet  what 
is  left  of  you  ?  Why,  so  much  is  left  that  nothing 
seems  to  have  been  taken.  Your  intellect  is  left, 
with  its  relations  to  the  whole  world  of  truth ; 
your  taste  is  left,  and  the  whole  loveliness  of  the 
universe  is  ready  to  feed  it ;  your  heart  is  left, 
and  all  humanity  with  its  calls  for  friendship  and 
love  and  service  are  around  it ;  your  faculty  of 
reverence,  your  power  of  worship,  your  spiritual 
sensibilities,  are  left,  and  God  remains  as  before 
the  Supreme  Mind,  the  highest  holiness,  the  un- 
speakable love,  asking  for  your  adoration,  your 
service,  and  your  gratitude. 

What  now  if  God  should  ordain  that  from  this 
hour  there  should  be  no  need  of  physical  toil 
upon  this  globe  ?  What  if  by  a  Divine  decree  our 
bodies  should  be  made  insensible  to  winds,  and 
storms  and  climates,  and  dispossessed  of  hunger 
and  thirst,  so  that  they  should  grow  to  maturity 
and  remain  there  without  an}^  dependence  upon 
the  outer  world  ?  Such  a  judgment  would  in- 
stantly turn  the  interests  and  the  labor  of  men 
upon  the  realities  connected  with  their  internal 
3* 


58  Christian  Thought  of 

nature.  Instead  of  trying  to  get  corn  and  grapes, 
despotic  cotton,  and  infamous  tobacco  out  of  the 
earth,  they  must  try  to  get  truth  out  of  it ;  instead 
of  studying  the  sky  to  learn  how  to  guide  ships 
more  safely  and  make  more  money  by  the  swift 
flight  of  magnificent  clippers  over  the  ocean,  they 
must  study  the  land  of  God's  wisdom  for  the  sake 
of  the  brain  rather  than  the  purse.  The  ambi- 
tion and  toil  to  build  up  stately  palaces  for  the 
body's  home  would  gradually  be  turned  into  the 
ambition  for  a  palace  of  truth  where  the  intellect 
should  dwell.  A  man  would  come  to  be  ac- 
counted rich  by  his  qualities,  his  knowledge,  and 
his  friends  ;  wisdom  would  be  indeed  more  pre- 
cious than  rubies  ;  and  the  soul's  happiness  would 
depend  on  its  friendship  with  God  and  the  peace 
of  faith.  If  we  could  live  on  this  earth  forever 
under  such  conditions,  it  would  begin  to  be 
apparent  very  soon  how  subtle  and  strong  the 
laws  of  heavenly  order  are.  What  could  a  mind 
do  that  had  no  appetite  and  would  not  seek  to 
stimulate  one  ?  and  what  would  a  soul  be  with  no 
pure  delight  in  the  beauty  of  the  world,  no  deep 
love  of  its  kindred  and  humanity,  no  powers  of 
meditation,  no  hearty  reverence  for  God  or  desire 
for  deeper  baptism  in  his  spirit  ?  Condemned  to 
live  forever  with  no  other  business  to  occupy  it 
than  to  deal  with  substantial  things  by  undying 
faculties,  the  great  avenues  of  science  for  State 
Street  and  Wall  Street,  books  of  wisdom  for  ledg- 
ers,  academies   and   athenaeums    for  exchanges 


the  Future  Life,  59 

and  banks,  truths  for  doubloons,  grades  of  men- 
tal attainment  for  aristocracies,  Humboldts  and 
Newtons  for  the  grandees  of  society,  Shake- 
speares  and  Dantes  for  presidents  and  kings  ;  no 
politics  possible  by  which  a  mean  man  could  get 
power  or  a  brutal  soul  corrupt  the  eloquence  of 
Senates  ;  no  food  but  kindly  sentiment,  no  wine 
of  delight  but  holy  love,  no  escape  from  the  do- 
main of  inward  qualities,  and  the  rank  they  give, 
into  external  avocations  and  the  conventional 
distinctions  that  grow  out  of  the  supremacy  of 
physical  necessities  now, —  would  not  a  soul  find 
itself  in  a  world  more  substantial,  more  vital, 
more  glorious,  yes,  and  more  terrible  too,  than  it 
dwells  in  now,  amid  markets  and  ships  and 
stocks  and  stores,  and  with  a  life-lease  of  only 
some  threescore  years  ?  And  all  this  simply  by 
annulling  the  needs  of  a  bodily  organization  ; 
not  by  taking  it  away,  but  by  cancelling  its  hun- 
ger and  thirst  and  its  sensibility  to  heat  and 
cold. 

But  those  words,  "  We  shall  also  bear  the  image 
of  the  heavenly,"  outlining  for  us  the  prominent 
condition  of  the  future  life,  call  on  us  to  conceive 
a  world  where  truth  shall  be  more  near  and  more 
brilliant  than  our  senses  will  show  it  here,  where 
the  whole  being  shall  be  spiritual,  and  instead  of 
being  half  bone  and  stomach  and  liver  and 
lungs,  we  shall  be  wholly  made  up  of  what  we 
are  mentally,  and  in  affection,  in  will,  in  reverence, 
and  in  soul.     It  is  this  conception  which  makes 


6o  Christian  Thought  of 

the  future  life  more  real  than  this  one.  What  we 
are  here —  nothing  of  our  accidents  and  our  shams, 
but  what  we  are- — goes  there,  and  goes  among 
everlasting  realities.  Our  bodies  here  are  simply 
the  pods  which  break  at  death  and  shed  the  loos- 
ened substance  into  the  all-embracing  world  of 
truth  and  spirit.  Just  as  we  are,  cut  loose  from  our 
coffers  and  our  station,  released  from  the  chrysalis 
of  our  parlors,  our  silks  and  satins,  our  brilliant  or 
tattered  drapery  of  circumstances,  our  plenty  or 
poverty,  we  go  with  our  mental  and  social  and 
spiritual  substance  into  the  world  that  has  no 
meat  and  drink,  no  occupations  and  dignities  but 
such  as  are  related  to  our  enduring  undermost 
humanity. 

Brethren,  is  there  any  speculation  about  this  ? 
Is  it  not  simply  the  natural  conception  of  what 
that  life  must  be,  if  we  have  no  bones  and  sinews, 
if  "  there  is  no  sea  there,"  and  so  no  traffic  in 
coin  and  bills  of  exchange  ?  And  is  it  not  this  per- 
fect naturalness  of  conception  that  makes  the 
solemnity  of  that  world,  when  we  think  of  people 
here  ?  Can  any  sensuous  imagery  about  the  judg- 
ment bear  with  it  the  terror  that  invests  that  state 
when  we  say  that  it  is  the  field  for  the  develop- 
ment of  our  eternal  nature,  and  when  we  see 
how  little  people  are  doing  here  for  that  nature  ? 
We  talk  about  preparation  for  heaven  on  the 
death-bed  ;  but  can  the  death-bed  alone  give  you 
an  interest  in  truth  more  than  in  money,  if  your 
life  has  been  the  other  way  ?  a  desire  for  loveli- 


the  Future  Life.  6 1 

ness  and  good  more  than  for  sensual  indulgence  ? 
a  rooted  habit  of  worship  and  communion  rather 
than  a  supreme  love  of  the  distinctions  and  pass- 
ing good  that  belong  to  this  world  ?  With  my- 
self I  know  it  is  this  which  arrests  me  most 
powerfully  and  pains  me  most  deeply  when  I 
think  of  lost  time  and  neglected  opportunities, 
and  gaining  habits  not  in  accordance  with  heav- 
enly truth, —  the  thought  what  preparation  is  this 
for  the  great  work  of  life  yet  to  come  ;  what 
foundation  is  this,  what  symmetry  of  powers, 
what  robustness  of  spiritual  constitution,  for  the 
business  of  the  soul  when  it  sloughs  off  the  body 
and  steps  into  its  own  world  ?  No  man  can 
frighten  me  with  pictures  of  an  outward  hell,  and 
a  malignant  devil,  and  a  judgment-seat  curtained 
with  lightnings  and  smoke.  That  is  poor  tawdry 
stuff,  fit  only  for  the  barbarous  childhood  or  the 
dotage  of  piety.  But  any  eloquence  that  pictures 
the  poverty  of  the  soul  for  study  and  worship 
and  love,  its  slavery  to  passions  when  it  is  yet  to 
go  where  passions  have  no  sustenance,  its  fitness 
to  deal  only  with  bricks  and  mortar,  laces  and 
velvets,  cargoes  and  notes,  dinners  and  wine, 
when  it  is  hurrying  through  these  to  a  great  sphere 
of  life  where  these  cannot  enter,  but  where  every- 
thing is  substantial, —  this,  whatever  it  may  do  for 
others,  thrills  me,  startles  me,  and  makes  me  ask 
about  my  preparation,  that  is,  the  whole  prepara- 
tion of  taste  and  manhood  for  the  world  of  which 
the  tomb  is  the  robing-room. 


62  Christian   Thought  of 

Think  of  carrying  some  of  the  habits  and  dis- 
tinctions there  that  enter  so  deeply  into  the  struct- 
ure of  Kfe  here.  Think  of  carrying  our  aristoc- 
racies there,  of  asking  about  an  angel  or  a  saint, 
radiant  with  the*  joy  and  the  love  of  all  goodness, 
of  what  family  it  came,  or  how  respectable  its  an- 
cestors were  upon  the  earth  !  Think  of  the  poor 
exclusives  from  this  sphere  carrying  their  petty 
measures,  which  limit  their  sympathies  on  earth, 
into  the  world  of  substance,  setting  up  their  little 
coteries  to  cut  Gabriel  if  he  did  not  belong  to  their 
set,  or  exclude  some  spirit  whose  brow  is  freighted 
with  truth,  if  he  was  not  born  quite  high  enough 
to  suit  their  fancy!  Ah,  is  it  not  this  that  makes 
the  comfort  to  our  sense  of  justice,  while  it  makes 
in  part  the  terror  of  that  life,  that  all  the  men  not 
recognized  here  because  of  some  superficial  infirm- 
ity or  defect  take  their  rank  instantly  in  that  state  ? 
Men  of  ill  success  from  no  fault  of  theirs,  men  with 
aptitudes  for  service  for  whom  no  place  was  opened, 
preachers  laden  with  wisdom  and  electric  with  the 
Holy  Ghost  but  with  a  poor  larynx,  so  that  their 
churches  are  half  empty,  while  good  elocutionists 
of  lower  truth  are  popular,  —  all  souls  unjustly 
rated  here,  go  to  their  place  in  God's  kingdom  of 
substance  and  find  their  sphere  of  service  ready. 
It  is  what  there  is  in  us  that  is  heavenly,  what  is 
related  to  the  deeps  of  God's  wisdom  which  are 
inexhaustible,  what  responds  to  his  art  which  is 
undrainable,  what  can  come  into  communion  with 
his  life, — only  this  that  will  avail  us  there;  for  our 


the  Future  Life.  63 

business  will  be  to  grow  in  knowledge,  in  friend- 
ships, in  service,  and  in  joy. 

When  a  man  comes  to  lie  down  in  the  tomb, 
that  is  what  we  think  of  at  once  in  connection 
with  his  speedy  transit  into  the  curtained  world, — 
not  how  much  money  and  reputation  has  he,  not 
how  much  profession  of  penitence  did  he  make 
in  his  last  hour,  but,  when  his  breath  stops,  we 
ask,  how  much  mind,  heart,  and  soul  had  he;  how 
much  hunger  for  truth,  loveliness,  and  good  to 
carry  into  the  world  where  all  our  faculties  are 
related  to  those  realities,  and  where  there  is  noth- 
ing to  distract  us  from  the  knowledge  and  the  feel- 
ing of  our  poverty,  if  we  have  nothing  but  frivolous 
and  earthly  appetites  and  tastes. 

This,  according  to  my  thought,  is  the  Christian 
way  of  conceiving  the  future,  the  way  suggested 
and  indorsed  by  the  Easter  festival  which  restored 
the  highest  being  among  the  children  of  God  to 
the  earth  again  through  a  yawning  tomb.  It  is  a 
world  of  faculties  where  we  keep  every  power  that 
glorifies  and  shall  be  set  to  the  great  business  of 
life,  and  which  grows  out  of  the  gifts  and  the  needs 
belonging  to  our  humanity.  There  ought  to  be  no 
haze  about  that  state.  There  is  no  more  mystery 
about  the  question  where  it  is  than  there  is  about 
the  question  where  God  is ;  and  yet,  if  we  are 
not  practically  Atheists,  we  must  believe  in  God, 
the  creative  thought  and  goodness,  as  firmly  as  in 
the  visible  and  solid  products  of  his  thoughts. 
Perhaps  one  other  sense  might  be  endowed  upon 


64  Christian  Thought  of 

us,  that  would  be  as  potent  in  disclosing  that 
world  to  us  as  the  lifting  of  an  eyelid  in  relation 
to  the  world  of  light  and  hues.  At  any  rate,  it 
must  be  as  real  to  our  faith,  if  it  is  worth  believ- 
ing in  at  all,  as  the  world  of  infinite  truth,  the 
realm  of  eternal  beauty,  of  the  deeps  of  goodness, 
and  our  faculties,  the  substantial  powers  of  our 
manhood,  which  are  related  to  all  these. 

To  my  mind  one  of  the  sublimest  records  of 
history  is  the  reply  of  old  heathen  Socrates  to 
his  judges,  when  they  condemned  him,  at  seventy 
years  old,  to  die.  "If  death,"  said  he,  "be  a 
removal  from  hence  to  another  place,  and  if  all 
the  dead  are  there,  what  greater  blessing  can 
there  be  than  this,  my  judges?  At  what  price 
would  you  not  estimate  a  conference  with  Orpheus 
and  Musaeus,  with  Hesiod  and  Homer?  I  go  to 
meet  them,  and  to  converse  with  them,  and  to 
acquaint  myself  with  all  the  great  sages  that  have 
been  the  glory  of  the  past,  and  that  have  died  by 
the  unjust  sentence  of  their  time."  That  is  what 
we  need,  —  to  think  of  the  future,  not  as  the  dun- 
geon where  the  wicked  are  locked  up  forever  in 
an  arbitrary  doom,  and  the  good  shut  apart  from 
the  evil  to  enjoy  forever  the  consciousness  of 
being  saved  from  perdition,  but  with  vigorous  im- 
agination to  regard  it  as  the  great  sphere  of  life, 
filled  with  society  amid  whose  myriads  we  must 
rank  according  to  quality,  overarched  with  all  the 
glory  of  God's  wisdom,  and  flooded  with  the  efflu- 
ence of  his  holiness  and  love,  with  continual  occu- 


the  Future  Life.  65 

pations  for  the  exploring  mind  of  Newton,  for  the 
massive  understanding  of  Bacon,  for  the  genius 
of  Shakespeare,  for  the  reverent  intellect  of  Chan- 
ning,  for  the  saintly  heart  of  Fenelon,  —  with 
duties  for  every  faculty  and  every  aifection,  and 
with  joys  proportioned  exactly  to  our  desire  of 
truth,  our  willingness  of  service,  and  the  purity 
of  love  that  makes  us  kindred  with  Christ  and 
God. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  great  faculties  of  our  na- 
ture as  passing  into  the  future  to  be  educated,  but 
I  have  not  ranked  them.  Of  course  the  highest 
is  love,  and  the  order  of  the  future  seems  most 
clear  and  most  impressive  to  my  mind,  when  I 
think  that  we  shall  go  to  our  places  there  accord- 
ing to  our  love  rather  than  our  wisdom.  It  will 
be  part  of  our  business  to  become  acquainted  with 
God  outwardly  by  the  intellect ;  but  the  great  law 
of  life  will  be  more  fully  manifest  there  than  even 
here,  that  our  joy  shall  consist  in  the  quaHty  of 
our  affections,  in  our  sympathy  and  our  charity. 
Though  we  have  the  gift  of  prophecy  and  under- 
stand all  mystery  and  all  knowledge,  and  though 
we  have  all  faith  so  that  we  could  remove  moun- 
tains, and  have  not  charity,  we  shall  be  nothing. 
Glorious  will  it  be,  no  doubt,  in  that  world  of  sub- 
stance to  be  surrounded  with  the  splendors  of 
God's  thought,  to  have  the  privilege  of  free  range 
whithersoever  taste  may  lead  through  the  domains 
of  infinite  art,  to  enjoy  the  possibilities  of  reception 
from  the  highest  created  intellects ;  but  our  bliss, 

B 


66  .  Christimi  Thought  of 

the  nectar  of  the  soul,  will  flow  from  our  conse- 
cration, our  openness  to  the  love  of  God,  and  our 
desire  of  service  to  his  most  needy  ones. 

For,  brethren,  let  us  associate  also  with  the 
future  the  business  and  the  glory  of  practical  ser- 
vice. All  degrees  of  spirits  float  into  that  realm 
of  silence.  Ripe  and  unripe,  mildewed,  cankered, 
stunted,  as  well  as  stately  and  strong  and  sound, 
they  are  garnered  for  the  eternal  state  by  death. 
Is  Christ,  whose  life  was  sympathy  and  charity 
upon  the  earth,  busy  in  no  ministries  of  instruc- 
tion and  redemption  there?  Has  Paul  no  mis- 
sionary zeal  and  no  heart  of  pity  for  the  Antiochs 
and  the  Corinths  that  darken  and  pollute  the 
eternal  spaces?  Has  Loyola  lost  his  ambition  to 
bring  the  heathen  hearts  to  the  knowledge  of 
Jesus?  Will  not  the  thousands  of  the  merciful 
who  have  found  it  their  joy  here  to  collect  the 
outcasts  under  healthier  influence,  to  kindle  the 
darkened  mind,  to  clothe  the  shivering  forms  of 
destitution,  to  carry  comfort  to  sick-beds,  and  cheer 
into  desolate  homes, — will  not  the  divine  brothers 
and  sisters  of  charity,  who  are  the  glory  of  this 
life,  find  some  call  and  some  exercise  for  their 
Christlike  sympathy  in  that  world ;  in  that  world 
which  is  colonized  by  millions  of  the  heathen  and 
the  unfortunate,  the  sin-sick,  the  polluted,  and  the 
ignorant,  every  year?  O,  doubt  not,  brethren, 
that  the  highest  in  Heaven  are  the  helpers,  the 
spirits  of  charity,  the.  glorified  Samaritans  who 
penetrate  into  all  the  abysses  of  evil  with  their 


the  Future  Life,  6y 

aid  and  their  hope.  Doubt  not  that  there  will 
be  ample  opportunities  for  the  exercise  of  our 
divinest  faculties,  and  that  we  are  prepared  for  its 
joys  just  as  we  are  furnished  with  sympathies, 
educated  on  the  earth  by  the  blessings  and  the 
cheer  they  have  scattered  among  the  wastes. /The 
healthiest  words  I  have  ever  read  about  Heaven 
are  these  simple  and  cool  statements  of  Sweden- 
borg :  "  There  are  societies  there  whose  employ- 
ments are  to  take  care  of  infants ;  there  are  other 
societies  whose  employments  are  to  instruct  and 
educate  them  as  they  grow  up ;  there  are  others 
who  in  like  manner  instruct  and  educate  boys 
and  girls,  who  are  of  a  good  disposition  from  edu- 
cation in  the  world  and  come  thence  into  heaven ; 
there  are  others  who  teach  the  simple  good  from 
the  Christian  world  and  lead  them  in  the  way  to 
heaven ;  there  are  others  who  in  like  manner 
teach  and  lead  the  various  Gentile  nations ;  there 
are  others  who  defend  novitiate  spirits,  which  are 
those  who  have  recently  come  from  the  world 
from  infestations  by  evil  spirits ;  there  are  some 
also  who  are  present  to  those  who  are  in  the  lower 
earth;  and  also  some  who  are  present  to  those 
who  are  in  the  hells  and  restrain  them  from  tor- 
menting each  other  beyond  the  prescribed  limits ; 
there  are  also  some  who  are  present  to  those  who 
are  raised  from  the  dead.  All  and  each  are  co- 
ordinated and  subordinated  according  to  Divine 
order,  and  taken  together  make  and  perfect  the 
general  use,  which  is  the  general  good.") 


68  Christian  Thought  of 

How  really  solemn  this  view  of  the  future  makes 
the  present  world  seem !  It  is  a  continual  appeal 
to  the  heart  and  to  the  will.  If  we  could  all  look 
ahead  but  a  few  years,  we  should  see  ourselves 
lifted  out  of  the  world  of  circumstances  and  grad- 
uated in  the  world  of  substance,  just  as  we  are 
dependent  for  our  dignity,  our  resources,  and  our 
joy  upon  the  development  and  strength  of  our 
human  qualities,  set  to  the  work  of  life  perhaps 
to  begin  the  very  alphabet  of  mental  and  moral 
progress.  O,  what  a  thought  it  is  which  the  Eas- 
ter day  flashes  into  our  bosoms,  that  this  is  only 
the  threshold  of  our  life,  and  that  our  real  life  is 
to  consist  not  in  wealth  and  pleasure,  but  in  truth 
and  love.  My  brother,  your  sin,  if  not  renounced 
and  repented  of,  your  evil  habit  forming  so  slowly 
and  by  subtle  aggregations,  is  casting  a  long 
shadow  far  out  beyond  the  sunset ;  it  is  pledging 
your  rank  and  mortgaging  your  peace  in  the  world 
of  truth  towards  which  you  are  flitting.  Your 
good  resolutions,  your  efforts  to  enlarge  and  culti- 
vate your  soul,  your  nourishment  of  charity,  are 
pouring  a  stream  of  hght  and  hope  on  to  the 
future,  or,  rather,  they  are  making  your  soul  buoy- 
ant and  translucent  for  the  serene  atmosphere  and 
spiritual  sunbeams  of  eternity.  To  the  eyes  of 
men  you  may  be  rated  now  for  what  you  have, 
and  the  scale  on  which  you  can  live,— your  money 
at  interest,  your  splendid  home,  your  position  in 
the  world  of  shows,  —  but  think,  I  pray  you,  how 
small  and  empty  are  such  estimates  before  the  fact 


the  Future  Life,  69 

that  soon  you  are  to  enter  the  halls  of  the  great 
house  not  made  with  hands,  and  begin  life  on 
your  capital  of  mind  and  heart,  of  reverence  and 
charity. 

What  we  need  is  to  banish  all  haze  from  our 
conceptions  of  the  reality  of  that  state,  so  that 
we  can  think  of  it  heartily  and  talk  about  it  to 
each  other  with  clear  eye  and  open  brow,  as  we 
would  talk  of  some  great  university  or  gorgeous 
landscape  of  a  foreign  land.  Thus  only  can  we 
have  any  comfort  when  our  dearest  are  transferred 
hence.  What  is  so  inspiring,  what  aspect  of  our 
humanity  is  so  lofty  and  divine,  as  when  a  Chris- 
tian mother,  over  the  hallowed  clay  of  a  little  one, 
can  say  with  assured  faith :  "  This  was  only  the 
earthy  image  of  an  innocence,  a  wonder,  and  a 
love  that  have  been  withdrawn  into  the  deeps  of 
eternal  life,  into  that  world  of  truth  and  essence? 
and  peace  that  is  near  me  in  my  prayers.  Its 
dawning  faculties,  which  I  loved  so  to  watch  and 
guide,  are  more  precious  to  God  than  to  me,  and 
he  has  lifted  them  to  a  state  of  being  where  a 
purer  light  and  more  delightful  splendors  than  the 
earthly  sun  sheds  or  shines  upon,  surround  its 
unfettered  spirit.  It  is  mine  still  through  my 
faith  in  God,  and  my  assurance  of  the  supremacy 
of  spirit  over  clay."  That  is  the  way  to  think  of 
the  future  world,  —  not  in  weak  fancy,  but  in  a 
conviction  that  our  powers  of  thought,  feeling,  and 
worship  are  our  real  substance  here ;  that  what 
we  know  of  the  universe  is  limited  by  the  few 


70  Thought  of  the  Future  Life, 

avenues  open  in  our  fleshly  organization,  and . 
that  truth  and  love  and  right  are  infinite,  and  will 
be  revealed  to  us  in  far  higher  and  more  sublime 
ways  as  soon  as  the  carnal  framework  of  our  in- 
tellect and  soul  is  stricken  from  partnership  with 
our  inmost  substance. 

1854. 


True  Spiritual  Communications.       71 


V. 

TRTIE  SPIRITUAL  COMMUNICATIONS. 

**  For  our  conversation  is  in  heaven."  —  Philippians  iii.  20. 

EASTER  Sunday,  the  second  festival  of  im- 
mortality in  Christendom,  seems  to  me  to 
offer  a  peculiarly  appropriate  season  to  consider 
the  meaning  and  methods  of  communion  with 
the  spiritual  world,  or  what  it  is  to  have  com- 
munication from  that  world.  There  is  peculiar 
need  that  the  subject  shall  be  treated  now  as 
carefully  and  thoroughly  as  possible,  and  in  the 
light  of  principles. 

It  is  not  only  true  that  there  is  a  spiritual 
world  with  which  we  can  have  communication, 
but  it  is  true  that  the  great  purpose  of  life  is  to 
bring  us  into  communion  with  it. 

But  the  first  question  of  interest  is,  What  is  the 
spiritual  world  ?  How  shall  we  define  it  ?  Have 
you  ever  formed  a  clear  idea  for  yourself  on  this 
point  ?  Have  you  ever  raised  the  question  with 
your  own  mind?  If  not,  all  your  beliefs  and 
feelings  as  to  what  intercourse  with  that  world  is, 
and  the  methods  of  attaining  it,  may  be  inade- 
quate, superficial,  and  confused. 


*]2        True  Spiritual  Communications, 

'  We  ought  to  be  careful  not  to  confound  the 
spiritual  world  with  the  next  life.  The  spiritual 
world  and  the  world  of  spirits  are  two  very  differ- 
ent things,  — things  just  as  different  as  the  truth, 
essence,  forces,  of  the  Christian  religion,  and  the 
visible  persons  that  constitute  this  congregation^ 
A  man  may  have  the  truth  of  the  future  life  de- 
monstrated to  him,  he  may  get  the  assurance  that 
there  are  myriads  of  persons  who  once  dwelt  on 
the  globe  now  living  in  disembodied  form, — 
yes,  he  may  even  see  and  talk  with  one  of  those 
unfieshly  colonists  of  the  unseen  sphere,  without 
receiving  any  truly  spiritual  impression  and  influ- 
ence. Just  as  a  Hindoo  may  hear  that  there  are 
Christian  countries,  that  they  are  inhabited  by 
millions  of  people,  and  may  receive  documents 
and  letters  from  some  of  them,  or  even  be  visited 
by  one  or  two  or  a  dozen  of  them  from  England 
or  America,  and  yet  receive  no  communication 
from  the  Christian  religion,  get  no  idea  of  it,  and 
be  carried  no  nearer  to  the  sphere  of  its  truth  and 
power.  And  all  because  the  persons  that  live  in 
outward  Christendom,  with  whom  he  is  brought 
in  contact  by  letter  or  conversation,  do  not  have 
any  of  the  life  of  Christianity  to  communicate. 
They  are  not  in  connection  with  it  spiritually,  and 
cannot  transmit  atid  diffuse  it.  And  so,  if  a 
ghost  should  come  to  our  chamber  and  tell  us 
that  there  is  a  kingdom  of  ghosts  just  beyond  the 
grave,  we  might  be  convinced  in  that  way  that 
men    do  not  die  when   their  breath  ceases,  we 


True  Spiritual  Communications,       73 

might  be  incited  to  turn  our  interest  to  the  sub- 
ject of  the  spiritual  side  of  life,  if  we  had  not 
believed  in  immortality  before ;  but  of  itself  that 
knowledge  that  there  is  a  world  of  spirits  on  the 
other  side  of  the  tomb  would  not  be  a  communi- 
cation from  the  celestial  sphere. 
^The  spiritual  world  is  the  world  in  which  souls 
live,  and  from  which  they  draw  their  nutriment, 
whether  in  the  body  or  out  of  the  body.  It  is  the 
outflow  of  the  life  of  God,  —  his  power,  his 
thought,  his  love.  The  spiritual  world  is  the 
world  of  reality  and  substance.  It  is  the  ground- 
work and  truth  of  all  life  and  of  everything  we 
see.  Every  flower,  every  tree,  every  plant,  every 
star,  exists  because  it  is  a  receptacle  of  the  Di- 
vine vitality.  J  It  was  organized  and  is  sustained 
by  his  thought  and  his  goodness,  and  we  compre- 
hend it,  we  really  see  it,  when  it  is  translucent 
with  the  rays  of  the  Infinite  life,  and  brings  us 
into  fellowship  of  mind  or  heart  with  God.  The 
visible  material  world  is  the  shell  of  which  the 
spiritual  world  is  the  soul.  It  is  the  series  of 
printed  signs  of  which  the  spiritual  world  consti- 
tutes the  sense.  When  you  read  the  sentences 
which  Burke  or  Bacon  has  written,  you  do  not 
stop  to  study  the  letters  or  shape  of  the  types 
that  cover  their  pages.  The  substance  you  are 
after  is  the  wisdom  and  eloquence  which  they 
poured  from  their  minds,  and  which  the  types 
record.  You  get  into  communion  with  the  spirit- 
ual world,  to  which  those  inky  paragraphs  are  the 
4 


74        Tnie  Spiritual  Communications, 

portals,  as  you  feel  your  intellect  penetrated,  and 
your  passions  stirred,  with  the  light  and  heat  that 
streamed,  in  their  creative  mood,  from  their 
genius.  And  the  visible  universe  is  the  vast 
array  of  types,  not  simply  once  set  up,  but  con- 
tinually created  and  composed  by  the  Infinite 
Mind,  to  convey  his  wisdom  and  love. 

We  have  the  privilege,  therefore,  of  living  in 
the  spiritual  world  now.  We  need  not  wait  to 
get  into  the  next  stage  of  existence  to  begin  to 
enter  it.  All  the  life  we  have  here  flows  from 
tKat  world  into  us.  We  live  in  it  and  of  it  here, 
just  as  the  spirits  that  have  passed  out  of  the 
body  do.  All  they  have  to  support  their  souls 
with  is  the  Divine  life  manifested  to  them  through 
justice,  loveliness,  truth,  charity,  as  those  realities 
are  offered  to  us  through  nature  and  society  and 
the  Bible.  We  live  in  the  spiritual  world,  if  our 
souls  are  awake,  precisely  as  they  do,  though 
possibly  we  may  be  one  remove  farther  off,  by 
our  bodily  organization,  from  the  waves  of  light 
and  love  that  flow  out  from  heaven. 

And  w^e  ought  to  hold  firmly  to  the  principle 
that  the  spiritual  faculty  in  us  is  the  real  organ  of 
communion  with  the  spiritual  sphere.  The  organ 
through  which  we  know  and  receive  light  is  the 
eye.  The  ear  enables  us  to  hold  intercourse 
with  music,  eloquence,  and  all  uttered  thought. 
The  lungs  are  the  channel  of  our  reception  from 
the  atmosphere.  And  the  soul,  the  power  by 
which  we  become  acquainted  with  Divine  truth 


True  Spiritual  Communications,       75 

and  respond  to  the  breath  of  the  Infinite  Life,  is 
the  channel  or  medium,  and  the  only  channel  of 
reception  from  the  spiritual  world. 

There  is  hardly  any  limit  to  be  assigned  to  the 
intercourse  we  can  hold  with  everlasting  truth, 
which  is  the  substance  of  heaven,  even  in  this 
world,  by  the  soul.  When  you  look  at  a  land- 
scape in  summer,  if  you  see  simply  so  many  trees, 
acres,  cattle,  stones,  you  are  wholly  in  the  natural 
world.  You  see  the  outside  shapes  and  colors, 
just  as  a  sheep  or  a  deer  does,  when  the  scene  is 
painted  on  its  eye.  If  you  study  the  soil  and 
rocks  so  as  to  learn  the  geological  truth  of  the 
region,  how  it  was  put  together  through  ages  of 
elaboration,  by  the  power  of  God,  and  prepared 
for  human  habitation,  the  outside  facts  are  at 
once  a  medium  of  Divine  truth  to  you.  A  wave 
of  God's  life,  an  influence  from  the  spiritual 
world,  rolls  out  of  the  scene  into  your  intellect, 
and  to  that  extent  you  come  into  communion 
with  the  Divine  sphere  by  your  mind.  If  you 
see  the  beauty  of  the  landscape,  if  the  charm 
and  harmony  of  the  colors  and  the  grouping  of 
grove,  meadow,  hill,  and  stream,  and  the  blaze 
of  the  overhanging  blue,  flecked  with  clouds 
that  shed  sailing  shadows  to  cool  the  grass, 
waken  in  you  a  joy  that  springs  from  perception 
of  the  ineffable  art  of  God,  a  richer  wave  from 
the  spiritual  world  breaks  through  the  scene  upon 
your  nature.  If,  beyond  these  two  experiences, 
you  see  in  the  same  landscape  a  mystic  expres- 


76        True  Spiritual  Communicatiojts, 

sion  of  the  Divine  goodness,  —  if  the  beauty 
glows  with  an  exhalation  of  love,  "  like  a  finer 
light  in  light/' —  so  that  you  look  on  the  budding 
corn  and  the  grazing  life,  and  the  peaceful  min- 
istry of  a  thousand  forces  to  human  happiness,  as 
Jesus  looked  upon  the  bounteous  hills  that  sloped 
from  the  shores  of  Gennesaret,  and  if,  through 
all  the  processes  which  publish  that  goodness, 
you  see  the  working  of  laws  that  tell  you  how 
God's  laws  and  life  play  in  the  experience  of  the 
human  spirit,  as  Jesus  plucked  part  of  his  gospel 
—  the  parable  of  the  sower  —  from  the  various 
fortunes  of  the  scattered  grain,  a  still  finer  surge 
from  the  everlasting  world  floods  you  from  that 
vision,  and  though  you  stand  under  the  visible 
sun,  and  are  in  the  body,  and  within  the  condi- 
tions of  mortality,  your  soul  is  in  communion  with 
God  ;  you  look  upon  one  district  of  this  world  as 
an  angel  looks  upon  it ;  your  feet  are  in  matter, 
your  soul  is  in  the  spiritual  sphere. 

You  will  see,  too,  how  this  principle  applies  to 
all  productions  of  genius.  When  you  read  a 
book,  look  at  a  statue,  examine  a  painting,  you 
are  on  the  natural  plane,  if  you  simply  see  the 
material  which  the  creative  mind  used  to  convey 
its  thought  and  sentiment.  You  pass  up  into 
spiritual  reception  in  proportion  as,  through  the 
printed  eloquence,  the  imprisoned  meaning,  the 
glowing  character  and  imagination,  you  rise  into 
sympathy  with  the  genius  of  the  writer  or  artist, 
and  lie  open  with  him  to  the  inspiration  that 
streams  out  of  heaven  into  the  human  soul. 


True  Spiritual  Communications,       yy 

The  soul  is  the  organ  of  reception  from  the  sub- 
stantial world.  Spiritual  communications  appeal 
to,  and  are  verified  by,  no  other  faculties,  any 
more  than  light  can  be  perceived  by  the  ear  or 
flavors  by  the  eye.  It  is  impossible  to  obtain 
communion  with  the  essential  quality  of  the  spir- 
itual world  in  external  ways.  You  can  only  be 
carried  to  the  outside  of  the  world  of  spirits  in 
such  ways.  It  is  by  something  told  to  the  inte- 
rior faculties,  something  superior  in  its  grade  to 
anything  we  can  learn  by  logic  and  by  sight,  some- 
thing that  makes  us  more  wise  in  everlasting  truth 
for  which  the  world  was  made,  more  spiritual  in 
feeling,  that  is,  more  pure,  reverent,  devout,  and 
joyful,  that  we  verify  a  message  from  the  heavenly 
world. 

If  an  angel  should  come  to  you  to-night,  and 
talk  a  little  gossip  and  depart,  you  would  gain  no 
communication  with  the  spiritual  sphere.  You 
would  only  have  seen  a  being  with  garments  of 
light  endowed  with  wings,  —  an  addition  to  the 
lists  of  entomology.  If  the  same  being  tells  you 
something  of  God,  of  the  divineness  of  goodness, 
of  the  all-penetrating  grace  of  heaven,  of  the 
beauty  of  holiness,  that  thrills  your  soul  to  its 
deeps,  wakes  your  devout  affections  from  paraly- 
sis, and  lifts  you  at  once  to  clearer  views  of  the 
worth  of  life,  and  a  higher  plane  of  feeling,  then 
you  have  had  a  spiritual  communication  from  the 
celestial  deeps ;  you  have  had  that,  and  in  addi- 
tion, the  outside  perception  of  an  angel.     The 


78        Trice  Spiritual  Communications, 

light  of  the  angel  adds  nothing  spiritual  to  the 
message.  It  would  be  just  as  much  a  spiritual 
communication,  —  because  your  soul  would  be 
opened  just  as  really  to  the  divine  life,  — if  your 
next-door  neighbor  should  give  you  that  truth,  and 
make  you  feel  it  as  deeply  in  a  conversation,  or  if 
it  should  stream  upon  you  through  a  book. 

For  the  sake  of  insight  into  this  world  and  its 
privileges,  and  into  the  origin  of  all  life,  we  need 
to  see  that  the  spiritual  world  is  the  world  of  es- 
sence ;  that  it  is  revealed  to  souls ;  that  it  is  the 
meaning  which  glows  through  all  matter;  and  that 
out  of  it  flows  all  goodness,  all  truth,  all  enduring 
happiness  on  this  side  of  the  grave. 

And  so  we  must  protect  ourselves  from  suppos- 
ing that  one  of  necessity  gets  further  into  the  spir-  ■ 
itual  world  by  passing  out  of  the  body  into  the 
next  life.  There  is  an  outside  to  the  next  life,  as 
there  is  to  this,  and  it  is  the  inside,  the  core  of 
truth,  which  the  outside  suggests,  that  is  spir- 
itual there  as  here.  If  a  person  does  not  go  up 
in  the  grade  of  truth,  feeling,  aspiration,  love,  in 
passing  the  boundaries  of  this  world,  it  does  not 
go  essentially  farther  into  the  spiritual  world,  but 
only  into  another  form  of  life,  —  the  next  life.  It 
has  changed  geography  and  climate  only.  And  in 
that  case  it  has  nothing  to  tell  us,  spiritually,  sim- 
ply because  of  its  removal  to  another  street  in  the 
city  of  God.  It  may  tell  us  that  there  is  a  con- 
tinued thread  of  existence  which  seeming  death 
does  not  snap  ;  but,  beyond  that,  it  can  give  us  no 


True  Spiritual  Commtmications,        79 

spiritual  information  which  we  cannot  get  here, 
until  it  gets  above  us  morally,  above  the  plane 
of  the  Bible,  above  the  feeling  and  vision  of  the 
purest  minds  and  souls  that  have  lived  open  to 
God  and  heaven  on  the  earth. 

We  need  to  insist  on  this  now  because  so  many- 
persons  suppose  that  by  the  methods  of  what  is 
called  "modern  spiritualism,"  they  get  specially 
and  peculiarly  into  communion  with  the  spiritual 
world.  They  sit  around  tables,  have  things  told 
to  them  which,  possibly,  had  been  locked  up  in 
their  memory,  see  manifestations  of  force  which 
they  cannot  explain,  and  listen  to  speeches  made  in 
trance,  and  then  suppose  that  they  are  in  instant 
communication  with  the  spiritual  world.  I  have 
very  little  doubt  that  there  are  forces  developed 
and  active  in  many  of  these  circles  which  have 
not  yet  been  explained,  which  are  very  interesting 
as  problems  in  science,  and  which  seem  very  mys- 
terious. But  I  have  not  one  particle  of  faith,  not 
so  much  as  a  grain  of  mustard-seed,  that  these 
unexplained  forces,  or  any  fact  or  word  that  I 
ever  saw,  heard  of,  or  read  of  in  connection  with 
what  is  called  spiritualism,  come  from  the  world 
of  spirits.  And  if  they  do,  if  they  flow  from 
the  spirits  that  pretend  to  originate  them,  the 
most  we  can  get  at  through  them  is  that  there  is 
a  continued  life,  that  people  exist  after  they  leave 
their  bodies.  If  a  man  is  far  down  below  the  be- 
lief in  that  doctrine,  and  the  rappings  and  tedious 
spellings  around  a  table  convince  him  of  it,  and 


8o        True  Spiritual  Communications, 

if  those  sounds  and  stammerings  of  trifles  through 
the  alphabet  come  from  an  honest  ghost,  the  man 
is  only  lifted  up  to  a  perception  of  the  fact  of  the 
future  existence.  If  his  noble  faculties  are  not 
stirred  by  a  higher  wisdom  of  God,  and  duty,  and 
charity,  and  the  dependence  of  souls  on  God  than 
the  literature  of  this  world  can  give  him,  he  had 
better  seek  his  communion  with  the  spiritual  world 
by  aids  from  this  side  the  line  of  death. 

A  great  many  spirits  belonging  to  the  next  life 
may  dwell  more  in  the  natural  world  than  we  do, 
—  may  see  things  more  from  the  outside,  see  less 
of  God,  receive  less  of  his  life,  know  less  of  the 
principles  of  his  rule  than  many  of  us  do,  and  so 
may  have  nothing  to  tell  us  that  is  spiritual.  I 
don't  want  to  talk  with  a  dolt  and  a  bore,  simply 
because  he  has  no  bones  and  blood.  Certainly, 
if  I  wanted  to  bring  an  intelligent  stranger  on 
this  continent  into  communication  with  the  spirit- 
ual world  through  the  spirit  of  Daniel  Webster,  I 
should  not  send  him  to  the  nebulous  commonplaces 
and  sentimental  drivel  that  I  have  seen  printed  as 
given  from  him,  through  writing  mediums,  since 
his  death,  that  do  unspeakable  discredit  to  his 
swarthy  ghost.  I  should  send  the  man  to  his 
Plymouth  oration,  in  which  he  celebrated  with  rev- 
erent eloquence  the  faith  of  the  Pilgrims,  and  in- 
terpreted the  providence  of  the  Infinite  in  history, 
and  charged  the  pulpit  of  New  England  to  be 
faithful  to  its  trusts,  on  peril  of  losing  its  character, 
by  denouncing  in  the  name  of  religion  the  trade  in 


True  SpiriUial  Communications,        8i 

slaves.  Then  his  colossal  nature  was  open  to  the 
breath  of  heaven,  and  through  all  its  pipes,  rea- 
son, imagination,  spiritual  sensibility,  charity,  an 
organ  music  rolled  that  lifts  us  to-day,  when  we 
come  within  the  sweep  of  it,  into  the  vision  of 
principles  and  enthusiasm  for  holy  truth. 

Indeed,  when  I  read  the  literature  of  modern 
spiritualism,  and  feel  how  starved  and  pale  it  is 
in  all  really  spiritual  elements  compared  with 
what  we  may  have  access  to  here,  I  should  feel 
compassion  for  the  souls  from  whom  it  issues  if  I 
believed  that  it  came  from  the  shrouded  world, 
and  should  be  more  anxious  to  open  communica- 
tion from  this  side  with  them  for  missionary  pur- 
poses ;  to  send  back  through  the  medium  that 
personates  Lord  Bacon  some  solid  paragraphs 
that  Bacon  wrote  in  the  flesh ;  to  fling  over  a  page 
from  the  pen  of  Channing,  when  housed  in  the 
body ;  to  transmit  a  poem  of  Tennyson,  an  orac- 
ular burst  from  the  genius  of  Carlyle,  a  principle 
from  the  spiritual  philosophy  of  Swedenborg,  that 
they  may  see  how  unspeakably  superior  we  are  in 
the  media  of  intercourse  with  the  eternal  world, 
and  what  an  impertinence  it  is  to  rap  out  to  us 
the  spelling-books  of  the  spirit  as  revelations, 
when  we  have  had,  and  have,  the  masters  of  ce- 
lestial wisdom.  "Shall  the  archangels  be  less 
majestic  and  sweet  than  the  figures  that  have 
actually  walked  the  earth  ? "  Do  large  souls 
dwindle  into  dwarfs  by  their  transplanting  into 
the  invisible  realm  ?    Are  we  to  account  it  a  great 


82        True  Sphdtual  Communications, 

privilege  to  talk,  by  slow  signs  and  creaking  dumb- 
waiters, with  creatures  in  the  cellar,  the  Calibans 
of  eternity,  while  we  live  in  the  upper  chambers 
of  the  house  cheerful  with  sunlight  ? 

Remember  that  your  communion  with  the  spirit- 
ual world  is  conditioned  on  the  plane  of  your  life. 
The  whole  question  is  a  question  of  planes. 
When  a  fresh  principle  visits  you,  or  takes  hold 
of  you  powerfully,  that  makes  this  world  seem  alive 
with  the  Divine  Presence,  so  transfused  with  it 
as  to  be  ready  to  melt  into  spirit;  that  makes  your 
soul  seem  substantial  rather  than  your  body,  and 
open  to  God ;  that  makes  justice  and  love  appear 
the  solid  verities  in  comparison  with  wealth  and 
power  and  pleasure ;  that  makes  existence  valu- 
able for  moral  ends,  the  reception  of  the  Infinite 
life  and  the  doing  of  the  Infinite  will,  —  then  you 
have  a  spiritual  communication ;  you  have  gone 
up  by  solid  steps  into  the  world  of  substance  and 
light.  Not  when  a  table  shakes,  but  when  my 
soul  shakes  under  the  new  light  and  force  of  a 
spiritual  truth,  there  is  a  communication  from  the 
celestial  world  to  me.  Details  of  how  ghosts 
live,  and  how  near  they  are  to  you  physically,  and 
of  what  electric  powers  they  have,  are  not  spiritual, 
any  more  than  g}^mnastic  exercises  which  you  may 
take  are  spiritual,  or  news  of  how  your  next-door 
neighbors  pass  the  hours  of  the  day.  All  this, 
of  itself,  is  simply  peeping  and  chatter. 

See  how  majestic  the  old  Bible  looms,  in  this 
respect,  over  modern  methods  of  spiritualism !    It 


True  Spiritual  Communications,       83 

deals  with  laws  and  truths,  not  with  gossip  about 
the  world  to  come  ;  and  when  it  opens  the  por- 
tals of  the  heavens  it  is  not  that  angels  may  tell 
secrets  about  persons  and  fortunes  in  the  spiritual 
sphere,  but  that  God  may  draw  nearer  to  souls, 
breathe  more  of  his  grace,  and  illumine  the  world 
with  his  light.  Think  of  lurid  Sinai !  I  love  to 
turn  to  the  picture  of  that  in  Exodus,  after  read- 
ing of  furniture  twistings  in  modern  parlors.  Its 
dingy  sides  were  swathed  with  lightning ;  it 
rocked  wath  thunder ;  to  touch  it  w^as  death. 
There  was  spiritual  manifestation  :  in  comparison 
with  the  paltry  forces  that  pass  for  such  now, — 
the  electric  rataplan  of  rappings  that  runs  over  the 
tables  of  a  continent,  —  an  eruption  of  Etna  to  the 
sputter  and  sulphur  of  a  friction  match !  And 
what  was  it  for?  To  tell  those  soggy-minded 
Jewdsh  slaves  anything  about  Hades,  or  the  fate 
of  their  fathers  in  the  realm  of  shades  ?  No  ;  it 
was  the  breaking  of  the  moral  law  into  history. 
It  was  the  birth-throe  of  the  ten  commandments 
— basis  of  all  purity  and  civil  strength — into  time ; 
the  laying  in  of  the  warp  of  Christianity  into  the 
loom  of  Providence.  The  cannon  of  Eternity 
boomed  over  that  hour,  and  their  echo  is  in  his- 
tory. 

Not  a  word  is  there  in  the  whole  Old  Testa- 
ment about  the  details  and  forms  of  the  disem- 
bodied life.  (The  nearest  to  an  exception  is 
the  intercourse  of  Saul  with  the  witch  of  Endor, 
and  she  was'  an  outlaw,  and  he  died  the  next 


84        True  Spiritual  Communications, 

day.)  But  the  spirit  that  vivifies  the  Old  Tes- 
tament stretches  and  thrills  language  to  the  ut- 
most, to  interpret  the  holiness,  providence,  and 
pervading  life  of  God,  the  evil  of  sin,  and  the 
blessedness  of  obedience. 

In  the  New  Testament  the  resei-ve  is  still  more 
impressive.  No  sentences  of  Jesus  stoop  to 
human  curiosity  about  the  indoor  life  of  heaven, 
while  he  is  never  weary  of  talking  of  the  laws  of 
the  blessed  life,  and  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  that 
is  within.  Moses  and  Elias  converse  with  him 
in  the  Transfiguration,  —  but  who  is  the  wiser  for 
that  dialogue  ?  After  the  resurrection,  is  there  a 
recorded  word  about  the  scenery,  the  solemnities, 
the  offices,  of  the  enduring  life?  Be  busy  in  duty, 
preach  the  Gospel  everywhere,  is  the  instruction 
of  the  risen  Christ.  Paul  says  that  he  was  once 
caught  up  to  heaven  in  a  trance.  You  will  read 
his  statement  of  it  in  the  twelfth  chapter  of  the 
second  epistle  to  the  Corinthians.  He  says  that 
it  occurred  fourteen  years  before  he  wrote  that 
letter,  which  must  have  been  just  after  his  conver- 
sion, that  whether  he  was  in  the  body  or  out  of 
the  body  he  could  not  tell,  but  that  he  "heard 
unspeakable  words,  which  it  is  not  lawful  for  a 
man  to  utter.''  Never  in  his  addresses  or  his  let- 
ters did  he  attempt  reports  of  that  season,  claim 
credit  for  being  a  trance  medium,  or  even  allude 
to  it.  It  was  because  he  had  a  real  communica- 
tion with  the  ineffable  light.  It  made  him  dumb 
but  luminous.      He  showed  his  nearness  to  the 


Tnie  Spiritual  Communications,       85 

spiritual  world,  and  has  left  the  witness  of  it  to  us, 
in  the  quickening  sense  of  its  reality  that  streams 
from  his  pages  ;  in  the  eloquence,  choking  of  its 
own  fulness,  that  utters  his  vision  of  the  love  of 
God,  the  excellence  of  Jesus,  and  the  joys  of  a  heart 
at  peace  with  heaven  ;  in  his  appeals  for  brotherly 
union,  his  denunciation  of  sin  from  a  vision  of  its 
foulness  and  terror,  his  description  of  the  worth 
of  charity  mounting  into  a  hymn.  Even  the 
book  which  we  have  named  "Revelations"  is  not 
an  unveiling  of  heaven,  but  a  picture  in  symbols 
of  the  judgments  about  to  come  on  the  earth,  and 
the  splendor  of  the  loyal  and  blessed  kingdom 
that  is  to  be  built  up  here. 

The  New  Testament  impresses  us  with  the 
conviction  that  inward  spiritual  states,  not  out- 
ward tidings,  are  the  essential  methods  of  com- 
munion with  heaven.  A  wise  man  of  our  day 
has  written  :  "  A  man  should  not  tell  me  that  he 
has  walked  among  the  angels ;  his  proof  is,  that 
his  eloquence  makes  me  one."  The  conversa- 
tions of  Jesus,  the  letters  of  Paul,  bear  this  mark 
of  birth  from  the  deeps  of  heaven,  that  they 
wrench  our  inmost  selfishness,  and  command  us 
from  the  heights  of  spiritual  vision,  and  make  the 
world  seem  thin  before  the  inner  blaze  of  celes- 
tial law  and  love. 

The  fatal  mark  of  impotence  and  folly  on  all 
systems  of  communications  claiming  to  be  espe- 
cially spiritual  is,  that  they  deal  with  particulars, 
and  bring  us  in  contact  with  persons  that  talk 


86        True  Spiritual  Communications. 

weak  sentiment  and  publish  items  of  news.  We 
can  have  communion  with  the  spiritual  world, 
with  the  very  core  of  it.  It  is  your  call  as  Chris- 
tians, as  men  and  women,  as  souls,  to  seek  it,  to 
pray  for  it,  to  labor  for  it;  you  should  count  your 
life  a  failure,  for  it  is  a  failure,  if  you  have  no  expe- 
riences of  it.  You  gain  that  communion  by  every 
method  that  quickens  insight  in  your  mind,  so 
that  4;he  powers  and  processes  of  nature,  the 
order  and  bounty  of  the  universe,  the  mystery  of 
the  stars,  the  purity  and  grace  of  the  light,  the 
opening  beauty  and  music  of  the  spring,  the  full 
pomp  of  the  summer,  are  transparent  media 
through  which  you  see  the  penetrating  and  sub- 
stantial life  of  God,  feel  it  working  around  you, 
and  are  drawn  by  it  to  cast  yourself  upon  Infinite 
Love. 

You  gain  it  by  reverence  for  justice,  by  confi- 
dence in  generous  truth  as  the  stable  wisdom  for 
nations  as  for  men,  by  such  perceptions  of  the 
divineness  of  charity  as  shall  impel  you  to  open 
your  soul  and  offer  your  purse  to  its  entrance  and 
dominion.  You  gain  it  by  seasons  of  silence, 
penitence  for  sin,  cleansing  of  the  windows  of  the 
soul  for  the  Divine  searching,  prayer  for  the  heav- 
enly light,  and  consecration,  in  the  privacy  of 
devotion,  to  the  work  and  will  of  God.  Thus 
you  go  into  fellowship  with  the  Infinite  Spirit : 
the  bonds  of  materialism  are  broken  ;  your  *'  con- 
versation is  in  heaven " ;  you  live  less  in  the 
body  than  in  the  spirit ;  you  are  not  a  soul  impris- 


True  Spiritual  Communications,       Sy 

oned  in  flesh,  but  a  soul  endowed  with  a  frame 
that  gives  you  access  to  the  Divine  glory  in 
matter,  while  you  have  immediate  access  to  the 
Divine  substance  and  assurance  of  Divine  grace. 

And  thus,  also,  you  increase  your  knowledge  of 
the  life  to  come.  Modern  spiritualism  claims 
great  advantage  by  assuring  men  directly  that 
there  is  an  immortal  life.  But  you  ought  to  be- 
lieve t/iat  on  deeper  and  nobler  evidence  than 
physical  manifestations  and  alphabetic  spellings 
and  trance  impersonations.  You  ought  to  believe 
that  by  the  inward  witness  of  the  Spirit,  by  the 
feeling  that  virtue  and  sanctity  and  all  filial 
qualities  of  heart  are  independent  of  matter  and 
above  it,  —  the  best  things  in  the  universe,  the 
things  God  loves  unspeakably,  which  he  will  not 
let  die,  which  cannot  die  because  they  are  of  his 
essence.  You  ought  to  believe  that  your  friends 
live  because  they  are  forms  for  this  life  of  God, 
and  were  born  out  of  God  to  live  for  him,  and  be 
purified  by  his  discipline,  and  blessed  with  his 
love  forever.  When  Thomas,  the  doubter,  insisted 
that  he  would  not  be  convinced  of  the  reality  of 
the  risen  Jesus  until  he  had  put  his  fingers  in  the 
prints  of  the  nails,  Jesus  said,  "Because  thou  hast 
seen  me,  thou  hast  believed  :  blessed  are  they  that 
have  not  seen  and  yet  have  believed."  f  And  so, 
blessed  are  they,  and  purer  is  their  faith,  that  turn 
with  distaste  from  doubtful  electric  wonders  and 
sorceries,  and  believe,  by  the  souFs  own  witness, 
that  truth  and  love  are  eternal,  and  that  we  are 


88        True  Spiritual  Communications, 

eternal  because  we  partake  or  may  partake  of 
those  effluences  of  God.  In  that  faith,  kindred 
with  Paul's,  leading  to  the  insight  of  Jesus,  we  hold 
intercourse  with  the  departed.  We  go  up  into 
sympathy  with  the  best  that  have  passed  on.  We 
rise  toward  the  plane  of  souls  whose  utterance  is 
not  through  physical  wonders,  but  through  charity, 
peace,  prayer,  and  benediction.  O,  how  we  de- 
grade communion  with  the  departed  by  feel- 
ing that  it  is  gained  in  any  other  way  than  by 
our  spiritual  elevation,  or  that  it  comes  in  other 
forms  than  by  inmost  and  unspoken  sympathy, 
"when  all  the  nerve  of  sense  is  numb,  spirit 
to  spirit,  ghost  to  ghost."  If  you  have  given 
a  beloved  life  to  the  keeping  of  God,  and  long 
for  influence  from  its  risen  substance,  you  will 
feel  it  and  find  it  when  you  find  God  himself. 
It  will  not  come  to  you  till  your  heart  is  pure 
enough  or  still  enough  to  feel  His  breath ;  and 
then  you  shall  be  conscious  of  its  presence  and 
sympathy:  — 

"  How  pure  at  heart,  and  sound  in  head, 
With  what  divine  affections  bold. 
Should  be  the  man  whose  thought  would  hold 
An  hour's  communion  with  the  dead. 

"  In  vain  shalt  thou,  or  any,  call 

The  spirits  from  their  golden  day, 
Except,  like  them,  thou  too  canst  say 
My  spirit  is  at  peace  with  all. 

"  They  haunt  the  silence  of  the  breast, 
Imaginations  calm  and  fair, 
The  memory  like  a  cloudless  air, 
The  conscience  as  a  sea  at  rest." 


True  Spiritual  Communications,       89 

When  the  conversation  is  in  heaven  through 
the  possession  of  principles  that  uplift  life,  and 
insight  that  discerns  God,  and  the  light  that  visits 
and  answers  prayer,  we  have  communion  with 
the  spiritual  world,  though  we  see.  not  its  outward 
scenery ;  we  are  ready  for  its  joys  and  duties  j 
we  are  in  fellowship  with  the  beloved  that  inhabit 
its  peace ;  we  know  and  feel  the  privilege  which 
the  Easter  Sunday  celebrates. 

1857. 


90  Life  more  Abmidaiitly. 


VI. 

LIFE   MORE    ABUNDANTLY. 

"  I  am  come  that  they  might  have  life,  and  that  they  might  have 
it  more  abundantly."  —  John  x.  lo. 

"  T  T  AVE  it  more  abundantly.'*  These  are  the 
JlJL  words  that  will  determine  the  direction 
of  our  thought  this  morning.  For  I  do  not  propose 
to  follow  the  subject  which  the  passage  imme- 
diately suggests,  that  is,  the  manner  in  which 
Christ  has  given  new  life  to  the  world,  but  to 
throw  out  some  thoughts  upon  the  general  sub- 
ject of  life  and  the  increase  of  it.  We  should  all 
be  led  to  see  that  the  Infinite  grace  appeals  to  us, 
not  exclusively  or  exceptionally  through  Chris- 
tianity, but  broadly  through  all  the  arrangements 
of  Providence  :  —  "  Enter  into  life  ;  receive  more 
and  more  largely  from  its  tide ;  it  is  prepared  for 
you  abundantly." 

God  supplies  us  at  birth  with  a  certain  amount 
of  animal  vitality,  and  with  certain  faculties  tend- 
ing to  various  kinds  and  degrees  of  good  in  the 
universe,  and  by  means  of  these  we  are  to  draw 
our  life  from  the  treasury  of  the  creation  and  from 
God.     Our  success  during  our  stay  on  the  earth 


Life  morAAbundanm,^        \^i 

is  to  be  measured  by  the  a^ourft^ahd  kintly6^1ife     -r^ 
we  derive  from  the  fountainl^atMi^  from  m^ 
Infinite  fulness.  ^  v:^    ^vl^ 

Life  maybe  increased,  —  this  is  the  jnosc^- 
portant  fact  to  be  noticed  and  enforced  in  all  that 
we  are  called  to  consider  now,  —  increased  almost 
indefinitely.  Even  in  the  physical  department  we 
may  have  it  "  more  abundantly "  by  obeying  the 
plain  conditions.  We  are  not  fated  to  a  short 
allowance  or  a  fixed  amount,  but  are  endowed 
with  the  power  of  growing,  and  are  tempted  by  a 
large,  unmeasured  possibility.  Through  exercise, 
and  the  proper  choice  and  economy  in  food,  we 
not  only  keep  well,  but  we  enlarge  the  stream  of 
vitality.  And  the  law  by  which  a  man  purifies  and 
refreshes  the  currents  of  his  blood,  makes  the  eye 
clear,  the  tendons  taut,  the  nerves  calm,  the  chest 
capacious,  the  step  elastic,  and  knots  the  muscles 
by  discipline  to  such  sturdiness  that,  though  once 
they  were  tired  with  a  slight  burden,  now  they  will 
lift  nearly  half  a  ton,  is  a  law  that  can  be  traced 
up  into  the  mental  and  moral  regions,  and  be 
seen  to  govern  the  spirit  as  well  as  the  frame. 

Life  may  be  increased.  A  great  many  persons 
try  to  increase  it  by  mteiuity.  Dwelling  on  a  low 
plane,  developing  none  of  the  faculties  of  the 
highest  order,  they  try  to  compensate  the  essen- 
tial poverty  of  the  career  on  which  they  start,  by 
the  concentrated  interest  they  devote  to  it,  and 
the  number  of  objects  or  pleasures  they  crowd 
into  their  whirling  days.     This  is  what  is  usually 


92  Life  more  Abundantly. 

called  now  "a  fast  life."  It  may  be  a  fast  life 
of  business  ;  it  may  be  one  of  fashion  ;  it  may  be 
one  of  guiltier  pleasure  ;  —  whatever  be  the  form 
of  it,  the  distinction  of  it  is  the  desire  to  do  and 
live  a  great  deal  in  a  short  time,  and  to  escape 
the  misery  of  a  plodding  existence  in  the  common 
ruts,  by  giddiness  in  occupation,  or  the  continued 
stimulant  of  the  superficial  sensibilities  into  de- 
light. 

Now,  setting  aside  the  absolutely  forbidden  and 
sinful  sources  of  pleasure,  there  is  much  to  be  said 
besides  mere  satire  and  condemnation  about  those 
who  live  intensely  in  these  days.  In  business 
many  have  no  choice.  The  conditions  are  such 
that  they  must  pledge  every  power  of  their  man- 
hood to  the  affairs  of  the  store,  the  office,  and 
the  street,  or  nothing.  They  cannot  control  their 
occupation.  While  they  remain  in  it,  they  are 
bound  to  it  like  Mazeppa  to  the  wild  horse,  or 
Ixion  in  the  fable  to  the  wheel,  and  must  follow 
its  rate  of  motion.  Then  there  are  others  who 
have  never  had  the  nobler  faculties  awakened 
early  in  life,  in  the  home,  or  under  their  teachers, 
and  stimulated  with  sacred  appetite  towards  the 
higher  grades  of  good  which  ennoble  the  human 
being ;  and  so  when  they  are  set  to  the  common 
occupations  of  life,  all  the  energies  of  their  nature, 
if  it  be  a  powerful  one,  must  issue  through  that 
single  vent.  Whatever  music  they  make  must  be 
on  one  string,  for  no  others  have  been  chorded  or 
tuned;   and  of  course   they   must   make   up   in 


Life  more  Abundantly,  93 

rapidity  of  movement  for  the  lack  of  breadth  and 
variety  of  organs.  And  if  a  man  is  to  be  limited 
to  one  narrow  range,  either  by  an  inward  or  out- 
ward necessity,  we  cannot  blame  him  for  pouring 
as  much  through  the  single  channel  as  it  can 
hold.  It  is  a  sad  thing  to  be  reduced  to  a  mere 
top  in  this  universe  \  but  if  a  man  comes  to  that, 
we  can't  blame  him  if  he  prefers  spinning  fast  to 
spinning  slowly. 

All  aspects  of  an  intense  and  superficial  life  are 
sad,  but  the  saddest  are  those  which  appear  vi^hen 
a  man  chooses  it,  especially  the  brilliant  and 
profligate  side  of  it,  with  the  intention  of  increas- 
ing the  quantity  and  richness  of  his  experience, 
of  living  while  he  lives.  It  is  under  doom.  Not 
only  is  it  guilt,  and  liable  to  surprises  of  retribu- 
tion, but  it  is  folly.  It  is  within  the  coil  and 
pressure  of  slow  but  steady  and  unrelenting  laws. 

God  has  ordained  a  certain  rate  of  motion  or 
intensity  for  every  faculty  and  every  kind  of  work 
which  body  or  mind  can  perform.  All  increase 
of  this  rate  is  purchased  at  the  expense  of  fibre, 
of  the  faculty  itself  If  you  crowd  more  business 
into  a  year  than  the  rate  of  your  brain's  action 
and  your  frame's  power  of  steady  working  can 
sustain,  you  are  consuming  capital.  If  you  study 
faster  than  the  mind  can  digest  what  you  import, 
you  are  spending  faculty.  You  may  insist  on 
more  and  stronger  sensations  than  the  system 
naturally  supplies,  but  you  shorten  or  paralyze 
life  as  the  price.   God  has  mixed  a  certain  amount 


94  Life  more  Abundantly, 

of  oxygen  in  the  air.  The  proportion  is  small. 
A  man  may  contrive  apparatus  for  doubling  the 
quantity  he  will  breathe,  in  order  to  be  more  ex- 
hilarated. But  he  burns  up  his  tissues  as  the 
inseparable  condition.  This  is  the  law  through- 
out the  circuit  of  experience. 

There  is  a  story  of  an  Eastern  monarch  who 
had  been  a  noble  ruler,  but  who  received  a  mes- 
sage from  an  oracle  that  he  was  to  live  only  twelve 
years  more.  He  instantly  resolved  that  he  would 
turn  these  to  the  most  account,  and  double  his  life 
in  spite  of  destiny.  He  fitted  up  his  palace 
gorgeously.  He  denied  himself  no  form  of  pleas- 
ure. His  magnificent  gardens  were  brilliantly 
lighted  from  sunset  to  sunrise,  so  that  darkness 
was  never  experienced  within  the  circuit  of  his 
estate  ;  so  that,  whenever  he  was  awake,  the 
stream  of  pleasure  was  ever  flowing,  and  even 
the  sound  of  revelry  was  never  still.  Thus  he 
determined  to  outwit  the  oracle  by  living  nearly 
twenty-four  years  in  twelve.  But  at  the  end  of 
six  years  he  died.  The  oracle  foreknew  and 
made  allowance  for  his  cunning  scheme.  No 
doubt,  on  his  death-bed,  the  monarch  saw  the 
vigor  and  despotism  of  the  laws  of  life  with  which 
it  is  vain  for  finite  art  and  will  to  wrestle.  The 
story  is  true  in  the  spirit,  though  it  may  be  fable 
in  its  details.  It  is  one  of  those  things  of  which 
we  may  say  that  it  is  real  though  it  never  hap- 
pened. But  it  has  happened  essentially  in  all 
ages,  and  in  untold  thousands  of  instances.     It  is 


Life  more  Abundantly.  95 

only  a  legendary  dress  of  the  law,  as  true  in  the 
moral  world  as  in  the  region  of  mechanics,  that 
what  is  gained  in  intensity  is  lost  in  time.  You 
cannot  **  have  life  more  abundantly "  by  making 
the  soul  crouch  down  into  the  body,  and  diffusing 
it  through  the  fleshy  envelope,  so  that  it  loses  the 
acquaintance  with  its  own  higher  realm  in  the 
added  zest  of  mortal  pleasure.  There  is  the  most 
tragic  waste  of  faculty.  The  end  of  such  effort  is 
disgust,  weariness,  and,  in  the  inmost  being,  the 
sense  of  emptiness,  folly,  and  unrest.  For  one,  I 
would  ask  no  more  serious  book  of  revelation 
on  the  side  of  law  than  would  be  made  up  by 
the  confessions  of  vacancy,  wretchedness,  inward 
shrivelling,  doubt,  and  despair,  that  have  come 
from  the  most  brilliant  fast  men  of  the  world. 

There  is  another  kind  of  life  that  we  may  call 
broad.  Life  is  increased  in  this  way  by  putting 
out  more  faculties  into  communication  with  nature 
and  society.  In  fact,  it  is  by  the  unfolding  of 
faculties  that  all  additions  to  life  are  received. 
Each  one  of  our  powers  is  a  receptacle  for  some 
element  of  the  Divine  good,  but  it  is  not  like  a 
goblet,  and  it  does  not  receive  as  water  is  poured 
into  a  vase ;  its  method  is  rather  that  of  a  seed. 
When  put  into  proper  relations  with  its  objects  it 
germinates  and  absorbs  from  the  currents  and 
forces  outside  of  it,  and  transmutes  them  into  its 
own  quality  and  substance. 

Some  men's  natures  are  simply  little  grass-plots, 
and  only  the  smaller  powers  of  their  spirits  are 


96  Life  more  Abtmdanily, 

put  in  communication  with  the  bountiful  life  of 
Providence ;  just  as  a  grass-seed  can  weave  noth- 
ing more  than  a  slim  strip  of  fluted  green  out  of 
the  air,  the  dew,  and  the  sun.  Some  have  wider 
areas,  and  are  adorned  with  vines  and  grain  and 
shrubbery.  Others  still  have  these  and  deeper 
faculties  at  work,  giving  us  the  munificence  of 
nature  transformed  into  lordly  trees  like  oaks  and 
elms. 

It  is  inspiring  to  think  how  some  natures  live 
broadly  enough  to  take  in  elements  of  growth 
from  the  farthest  quarters  of  the  visible  universe. 
There  are  great  naturaHsts  living  now  that  have 
received  nutriment  for  their  life  from  the  lowest 
discovered  stratum  of  the  earth  and  froni  the 
most  distant  patch  of  milky  light  in  immensity. 
This  is  a  method  of  receiving  life  "  more  abun- 
dantly," and  in  saying  now  that,  according  to  the 
Christian  wisdom,  it  is  not  the  highest  way,  I  am 
not  going  to  criticise  it  but  to  commend  it.  It 
has  often  been  the  case  that  the  good  which  the 
world  can  furnish  and  the  good  which  religion 
can  furnish  have  been  so  contrasted  as  to  make 
everything  the  first  supplies  appear  shallow  in 
comparison  with  the  resources  of  the  other  sphere. 
But  there  is  unmixed  good  to  be  obtained  from 
the  world  by  relating  the  proper  faculties  rightly 
to  it,  and  it  is  a  noble  spectacle  when  a  man  is 
seen  into  whom  life  is  pouring  richly  from  all  por- 
tions of  the  creation  and  of  society.  It  is  grand 
to  see  a  man  taking  interest  in  truth,  feeding  his 


Life  more  Abundantly,  97 

mind  with  it,  enlarging  his  hunger  for  it ;  to  see 
him  not  shut  up  in  the  interest  of  his  own  family 
mere/y,  but  concerned  for  the  community,  and 
pouring  out  some  power  from  himself  into  the 
stream  of  general  interest ;  to  see  him  not  indif- 
ferent to  social  pleasures,  but  tasting  them  in 
proper  subordination  to  the  dignity  of  his  being, 
and  sunning  his  heart  in  their  sweet  light ;  given 
to  wide  reading ;  finding  refreshment  in  music ; 
having  a  taste  for  art  and  refining  it ;  in  a  word, 
broadening  his  life  in  every  direction  where  a  dis- 
tinct faculty  which  God  has  organized  into  his 
nature  can  solicit  and  absorb  substance. 

The  more  pure  fountains  that  are  practically 
open  to  the  mind  the  better.  The  more  powers 
we  can  have  aroused  in  us,  in  days  like  these, 
when  the  temptations  and  pressures  are  so  power- 
ful that  would  make  a  man  the  mere  handle  of 
an  implement  or  the  fraction  of  a  business,  the 
better  is  it  morally  for  the  community.  Think 
of  narrowness  of  life  in  a  world  so  rich !  It  is  as 
if  a  machine-shop  furnished  for  building  steam- 
engines  should  turn  out  pins.  Think  of  being 
planted  in  this  universe,  as  each  human  being  is, 
and  consider  what  comes  of  it  usually !  If  there 
were  a  rich  prairie  district  as  large  as  New  Eng- 
land in  which,  though  the  most  various  and  vital 
seeds  should  be  dropped,  and  supplied  with  rain 
and  light,  nothing  would  grow  but  dandelions  and 
white-weed,  what  a  strange  problem  it  would  be 
for  scientific  farmers,  what  scrutiny  would  be 
5  G 


gS  Life  more  Abundantly. 

applied  by  chemists  of  the  soil,  what  mourning 
over  such  waste  would  be  raised  by  political 
economists  !  The  soil  seemingly  rich,  the  climate 
fine,  and  yet  no  trees,  no  fruit,  no  grain,  no  flowers 
producible,  but  only  puny  spears  of  almost  worth- 
less vegetable  life  !  And  yet  how  often  does  this 
globe,  poised  amid  the  unveiled  universe,  turn  out 
a  man  that,  for  breadth  of  attainment  in  knowl- 
edge and  life,  stands  to  the  rest  of  his  fellows  as  a 
majestic  pine  to  a  buttercup  or  a  grass-blade!  I 
delight  to  think  of  men  like  Humboldt  and  Arago, 
Herschel  and  Agassiz,  and  to  see  in  them  that 
the  riches  of  infinite  truth  are  not  wholly  wasted 
on  us ;  that  God  does  not  rain  his  wisdom  through 
all  our  air  and  pack  his  treasures  beneath  our  soil 
entirely  for  nothing,  so  far  as  the  enlarging  of  the 
boundaries  of  human  spirits  is  concerned.  And 
one  of  the  pleasantest  sights  in  society,  next  in 
grade  to  seeing  a  character  beneficent  and  rever- 
ential, is  that  of  a  person  busy  with  a  mechanic's 
task  or  a  merchant's  toil,  who  insists  on  remember- 
ing that  he  has  a  mind,  and  who,  through  some 
department  of  science,  —  Botany,  Geology,  Zo- 
ology, Astronomy,  Optics,  or  some  regular  read- 
ing in  History  or  Biography  or  Travel,  —  keeps 
up  communication  with  the  world  of  truth  without 
him,  and  sees  to  it  that,  while  he  gains  in  wealth 
perhaps,  he  does  not  shrivel  as  a  man,  but  as  he 
gains  in  money  gains  life,  too,  more  abundantly. 

Yet   this  life,  though  broad  as  we  have  thus 
interpreted  it,  may  be  superficial.     The  true  abun- 


Life  more  Abundantly,  99 

dance  comes  not  from  intensity,  and  not  alone 
from  the  number  of  objects  with  which  we  are  in 
communion,  but  from  depth,  A  life  is  rich  in  the 
proportion  that  it  is  deep ;  and  it  is  deep  to  the 
extent  that  the  moral  and  spiritual  sentiments  are 
active  and  healthy.  This  is  no  cant,  brethren,  or 
mere  pulpit  talk,  because  it  is  proper  for  such 
words  to  be  spoken  in  the  pulpit.  This  is  solidly 
and  scientifically  true.  Creeds  may  be  false,  but 
this  is  certain.  Bibles  may  be  mistaken,  but  this 
is  unquestionable.  The  spirit  that  has  a  sense  of 
justice  quick  and  large,  and  lives  by  it  in  relation 
to  his  fellows,  and  tries  to  organize  more  of  it 
through  himself  in  society,  lives  deeper  than  the 
man  of  intellect  and  infinitely  deeper  than  the 
man  of  pleasure.  The  affections  are  richer  than 
the  money-making  and  the  truth-seeking  capaci- 
ties ;  and  the  richest  affections  are  those  which 
bind  us  consciously  to  the  Infinite.  Every  kind 
of  life  is  essentially  superficial  that  does  not  bring 
the  human  heart  nearer  to  the  Infinite  Presence 
and  Love. 

The  heart  of  truth  is  gone,  and  the  man  has 
only  the  shell  of  it,  if  he  does  not  see  the  expres- 
sion of  God's  thought  or  providence  in  the  splen- 
dors of  order  and  majesty  which  the  outward 
world  discloses.  A  man  may  know  all  the  se- 
crets which  the  earth  hides,  every  link  in  the  chain 
of  geological  years,  the  structure  and  distribution 
of  all  the  animal  tribes  that  are  and  have  been,  — 
yes,  he  may  untangle  by  his  thought  the  meshes  of 


lOO  Life  more  Abundantly. 

midnight  light,  and  feel  that  he  lives  amid  an  order 
boundless  in  its  reach  and  impregnable  in  its  sta- 
bility. And  yet  what  if  it  is  an  atheistic  order? 
What  if  he  feels  no  breath  of  an  Infinite  presence 
upon  his  heart  ?  What  if  he  discerns  the  traces  of 
no  Infinite  skill  in  the  pillars  and  the  dome  of  the 
mighty  palace  which  his  thought  inhabits  ?  What 
if  no  emotion  is  prompted  in  him,  or  tempted 
from  him,  of  reverence  to  an  all-penetrating  intel- 
lect, of  awe  toward  a  sovereign  holiness,  of  aspi- 
ration for  the  blessing  of  an  all-sustaining  love  ? 
What  if  his  knowledge  be  such  that  it  has  ban- 
ished poetry,  mystery,  and  sanctity  from  the  walls 
and  the  very  air  of  nature?  Then  I  say  that, 
though  the  life  be  mentally  broad,  it  is  spiritually 
shallow.  And  the  man  who  looks  up  to  the  stars 
with  no  knowledge  of  their  vastness,  but  with  in- 
stinctive recognition  of  a  power  of  which  they  are 
mere  sparkles,  —  the  man  who  knows  nothing  of 
botany,  but  takes  a  simple  flower  in  his  hand  as 
Christ  took  a  wild  lily  on  a  Galilean  farm,  feeling 
an  effluence  from  the  creative  goodness  in  its  fra- 
grance, —  nay,  the  poor  woman  that  could  not 
stretch  her  mind  to  comprehend  a  single  problem 
of  the  higher  sciences,  while  none  of  them  could 
shake  her  faith  that  this  little  globe  which  she 
imagines  to  be  the  centre  of  nature  is  bathed  in 
providential  interest,  and  that  the  grave  of  her 
child  is  the  bond  between  her  heart  and  heaven, 
—  each  has  a  deeper  life,  because  a  deeper  fac- 
ulty awakes  to  receive  life  from  the  world  without, 


Life  more  Abundantly,  loi 

than  he  whose  brain  is  encircled  with  the  icy 
crown  of  an  unbelieving  wisdom. 

Of  course  a  thoroughly  proportioned  life  will 
have  both  breadth  and  depth  \  but  we  must  not 
fail  to  see  that  depth  is  the  essential  thing.  That 
is  connected  with  religion  ;  that  every  mind  may 
have.  There  are  very  few  that  can  escape  the 
despotism  of  toil  for  bread.  There  are  very  few 
of  us  that  could  become  eminent  for  breadth  and 
large  detail  of  outward  knowledge,  even  if  the 
liberty  to  cultivate  the  intellect  to  the  full  were 
granted  to  us.  But  the  deepest  life  is  possible  for 
us  all.  Christ  came  that  the  lowest  as  well  as 
the  highest  might  have  it  more  abundantly.  It 
is  offered  to  you  and  me  independently  of  our 
strength  of  mind  or  fulness  of  learning.  Astron- 
omy we  may  not  have  time  to  study,  or  ability  to 
master ;  but  God,  who  made  all  worlds,  is  as  near 
to  this  one  as  to  any,  and  as  ready  to  fill  our  spirits 
as  those  that  live  in  the  most  distant  or  brilliant 
star.  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  most 
learned  man  now  living  has  any  more  evidence 
of  God  by  reason  of  his  learning  than  has  the 
humblest  person  here.  If  one  can  be  an  atheist 
in  presence  of  a  tree,  or  a  moss-rose,  or  a  human 
form,  or  the  rising  and  setting  sun,  there  is  no 
reason  why  he  should  not  be  after  reading  the 
works  of  Cuvier  and  the  Principia  of  Newton.  It 
is  a  sacred  instinct,  not  a  chain  of  logic,  by  which 
we  believe  in  God  and  hold  to  him. 

And  the  religious  life  may  be  developed  inde- 


102  Life  more  Abtmda7ttly, 

pendently  of  all  our  learning.  How  much  knowl- 
edge do  you  need,  my  brother,  to  convince  you 
that  you  ought  to  obey  conscience  ?  How  wide 
acquaintance  with  literature  to  prove  to  you  that 
you  ought  to  bridle  your  selfishness,  and  trample 
a  foul  passion  beneath  your  will?  How  great 
familiarity  with  libraries  to  assure  you  that  a  dis- 
position of  prayer  and  trust  brings  back  a  rich 
reward  through  inward  harmony  and  a  sense  of 
peace  ?  This  is  the  deep  life,  and  we  may  have 
it  though  we  be  burdened,  though  we  have  little 
time  for  the  cultivation  of  mental  powers  and  the 
faculties  that  make  life  graceful.  Seek  these 
others,  but  be  sure  that  you  neglect  not  to  seek 
this.  This  overflows  upon  all  other  domains  of 
life  and  enriches  them. 

And  this,  whatever  else  we  have,  is  essential 
still.  You  can  get  along  without  classical  learn- 
ing, without  reading  Cicero,  without  knowing  the 
attractive  magic  of  chemistry,  without  knowing 
the  procession  of  ages  when  the  earth  was  form- 
ing, without  knowing  the  distance  of  Sirius,  or  the 
orbit  of  Neptune,  or  the  year  when  Alexander 
lived,  or  the  science  of  a  nation's  prosperity  \  but 
you  cannot  get  along  without  God  as  a  power  on 
your  life  and  peace  to  your  soul.  You  may  slip 
along  through  years  of  business  destitute  of  this ; 
you  may  try  to  make  up  for  it  by  money,  toil, 
fashion,  elegance,  learning,  and  entertainment,  — 
all  of  which,  too,  are  good  and  necessary,  —  but 
with  these  alone  there  will  be  the  inward  want,  — 


Life  more  Abundantly,  103 

deep  crying  unto  deep,  the  lack  of  adjustment  to 
the  central  reality,  the  mighty  craving  of  the 
mightiest  power  within. 

Ah,  how  many,  gifted  with  everything  else,  have 
found  life  insupportable,  and  have  longed  for  the 
grave,  from  lack  of  the  consciousness  of  personal 
relation  to  Infinite  Love ! 

"  Whatever  crazy  sorrow  saith, 
No  life  that  breathes  with  human  breath 
Has  ever  truly  longed  for  death. 

"  'T  is  life,  whereof  our  nerves  are  scant, 
O,  life,  not  death,  for  which  we  pant ; 
More  life,  and  fuller,  that  we  want." 

It  is  no  wonder  that  so  many  thousands,  just  in 
proportion  to  the  awakening  of  their  noble  facul- 
ties, have  found  still  no  rest  because  the  noblest 
has  not  been  aroused.  The  more  we  stimulate 
the  others,  the  more  we  need  the  religious  to  give 
peace  amid  the  queries,  problems,  and  torments 
which  the  others  so  often  entail. 

And  we  can  have  this  deepest  life  by  beginning 
to  live  for  God.  Curb  your  passions.  Begin  from 
this  moment  to  listen  to  the  inward  voice.  Con- 
secrate your  heart.  Meditate  upon  the  Infinite 
as  the  holiest  and  the  best,  set  forth  for  our  wor- 
ship not  in  the  stars  so  clearly  as  in  the  heart  of 
Christ.  Education  is  no  more  certain  to  bring 
knowledge  than  the  humble  obedience  to  these 
conditions  is  sure  to  bring  the  diviner  life.  The 
pipe  attached  to  the  main  artery  that  conducts 
the  bounty  of  the  lake  to  our  city  is  no  more  sure 


104  Life  more  Abundaiitly, 

to  be  filled  with  water  than  our  souls  are  to  be  en- 
riched with  God  if  we  desire  it.  Only  clear  the 
obstructions.  Only  see  that  the  entrance  of  the 
channel  is  not  choked.  The  best  things  are  sure. 
Toil  may  not  yield  money.  Carefulness  may  not 
protect  health.  Study  may  not  banish  error. 
The  utmost  art  cannot  keep  off  the  final  sickness 
and  the  call  of  death.  But  the  Divine  life  is  pos- 
sible to  every  one  of  us.  "  God  may  be  had  for 
the  asking."  The  spirit  that  will  remain  when 
money  flies,  and  still  make  us  rich ;  that  will  not 
waste  as  the  body  weakens,  but  grow  stronger, 
and  make  us  inwardly  well ;  that  cannot  crumble 
into  the  dust  to  which  the  frame  is  converted,  but 
will  be  liberated  for  larger  development  when  the 
body  goes  into  the  treasury  of  nature  for  new  ser- 
vices,—  is  offered  to-day  to  every  soul  that  has 
been  animated  by  the  Infinite  breath.  The  heaven 
of  heavens  cannot  contain  Him,  yet  he  will  abide 
in  every  humble  and  contrite  heart. 

1859. 


Lessons  of  the  Drought.  105 


VII. 

LESSONS  OF  THE  DROUGHT. 

"  For  he  maketh  his  sun  to  rise  on  the  evil  and  on  the  good, 
and  sendeth  rain  on  the  just  and  on  the  unjust."  —  Matthew  v.  45. 

JESUS,  desiring  to  find  the  amplest  natural  sym- 
bol of  the  Divine  beneficence,  weaves  together 
into  one  sentence  the  sunshine  and  the  rain,  com- 
pleting the  rhythm  which  the  impartiality  of  the 
quickening  light  began  by  the  generosity  of 
showers  and  the  broad  bounty  of  the  storms.  It 
is  thus  that  they  are  related  in  the  natural  world. 
Together  they  fill  out  the  sentence  of  Infinite  care. 
The  sun,  fountain  of  light  and  heat,  and  store- 
house of  gravitation,  is  the  chief  type  of  the  wis- 
dom, love,  and  justice  of  the  Infinite;  but,  as 
manifest-  to  men,  it  is  through  its  great  office  as 
the  conjurer  of  clouds,  and  in  the  warm  alterna- 
tion of  its  beams  with  the  drifting  rain,  that  it  ful- 
fils the  type  of  Providential  mercy. 

The  Sabbath  hours  are  well  improved  if  they 
lead  us  to  some  fresh  and  deeper  recognition  of 
God  in  his  physical  government.  And  if  we 
should  turn  our  thoughts  this  morning  into  the 
channel  of  deepest  present  interest,  unquestion- 
5* 


I06  Lessons  of  the  Drought 

ably  they  would  busy  themselves  with  the  prob- 
lem of  the  drought;  they  would  associate  the 
richest  favor  of  Heaven  with  the  gloom  of  heavy 
cloud  and  the  music  of  rain. 

For  many  weeks  the  land  has  been  afflicted  (so 
it  seems,  at  least,  to  our  ignorance)  by  almost  un- 
interrupted sunshine.  From  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Mississippi  the  sky  has  bent  hot,  hard,  and  hollow 
over  a  parching  soil.  The  hillsides  are  blasted 
with  fever.  The  grass  has  been  scorched.  The 
fruits  have  shrunk.  The  trees  are  withering  with 
thirst,  and  shedding  shrivelled  leaves  upon  the 
burning  winds.  The  streams  are  dwindling; 
brooks  and  ponds  are  drunk  to  their  springs  by 
the  insatiable  sun.  No  "ribands  of  silver  un- 
wind from  the  hills."  The  corn-harvest  is  smit- 
ten. The  glorious  promise  of  the  early  summer, 
pointing  to  full  garners  and  cheap  food,  has  died 
into  the  arid  landscape  of  waste  and  destitution. 
Men  have  longed  to  see  the  beauty  of  clouds,  but 
scarcely  any  vapory  spots  have  stained  the  heated 
helmet  of  the  heavens  ;  they  have  prayed  for  the 
cold  storm-winds  from  the  northeast  to  break  the 
indigence  of  the  sky,  and  some  days  the  south- 
west has  opened  sirocco-caves  and  let  loose  airs 
that  seemed  outriders  of  earthquakes,  laden  with 
sulphur  and  smoke.  It  seems  as  though  the  earth 
was  turning  on  its  axis  to  be  roasted  by  the  sun. 
Day  after  day  the  heavens  have  been  brass  and 
the  earth  iron,  the  rain  powder  and  dust.  Read 
the  accounts  which  every  telegraph  brings  from 


Lessons  of  the  Drought.  107 

the  West  and  North,  and  judge  if  anything  less 
than  the  sultry  rhetoric  of  Joel  can  describe  it : 
"  The  seed  is  rotten  under  their  clods,  the  garners 
are  laid  desolate,  the  barns  are  broken  down;  for 
the  corn  is  withered.  How  do  the  beasts  groan  ! 
the  herds  of  cattle  are  perplexed  because  they 
have  no  pasture  ;  yea,  the  flocks  of  sheep  are 
made  desolate."  Have  we  not  been  afflicted  with 
incessant  sunshine  ?  If  the  dark  clouds  should 
gather  and  the  floods  should  burst  over  the  conti- 
nent, a  chorus  of  devout  joy  would  rise  to  Heaven 
from  hearts,  if  not  from  lips,  more  grand  than  the 
written  one  in  the  Oratorio  of  Elijah,  "Thanks 
be  to  God,  he  laveth  the  thirsty  land ! " 

What  are  the  religious  lessons  of  the  drought  ? 

First,  it  suggests  to  us  the  oscillations  of  the 
forces  of  nature,  out  of  which  our  order  and  bless- 
ings are  woven.  The  physical  government  of  God 
seems  most  impressive  and  admirable  when  we 
see  that  it  is  not  rigid  and  mechanical,  but  easy, 
graceful,  full  of  play,  —  the  harmony  of  constant 
alternations.  We  cannot  prophesy  weather  and 
temperature  as  we  can  prophesy  eclipses  and  the 
speed  of  the  earth  in  its  orbit.  There  are  no 
statutes,  there  is  no  appointed  calendar,  which  dry 
and  wet,  sunshine  and  cloud,  must  observe  and 
fulfil.  Yet  the  average  of  moisture  and  of  heat 
is  kept  remarkably  constant  every  year.  The 
rains  seem  to  flow  by  chance ;  the  light  and 
gloom,  the  warmth  and  frost,  do  not  fall  in  the 
same  degrees,  on  the  same  days  or  weeks ;  but 


io8  Lessons  of  the  DrougJit, 

when  the  budget  of  the  year  is  closed  it  turns  out 
that  the  seasons,  year  by  year,  in  the  same  dis- 
tricts, are  ahnost  all  twins  as  to  temperature  and 
fertility.  In  fact,  it  is  said  that  trees  and  plants 
are  so  nicely  fitted  to  a  certain  average  tempera- 
ture that  they  would  die  if  the  mean  warmth 
should  fall  five  degrees  for  a  succession  of  two  or 
three  years.  With  how  subtle  a  skill  must  law  be 
inwoven  by  the  great  spirit  into  the  world  when 
the  very  frolic  of  the  elements  is  order,  and  the 
gambols  of  winds  and  frosts,  light  and  vapor, 
which  no  science  can  fathom  and  foretell,  are  the 
pulses  of  a  vast,  invariable  harmony!  Perhaps 
the  whole  range  of  natural  religion  presents  no 
more  beautiful  and  striking  proof  of  Divine  order 
in  the  physical  world  than  the  lecture  which  a 
scientific  man  might  give  to  a  class  on  rain,  as  he 
turned  a  globe  or  pointed  to  a  map  of  the  earth. 
On  no  two  lines  of  latitude,  he  would  say,  will 
there  be  the  same  amount.  The  different  winds, 
the  nearness  to  or  distance  from  the  equator,  the 
position  inland  or  by  the  sea,  on  the  east  or  west 
side  of  a  mountain  chain,  will  vary  the  quantity 
amazingly.  But  in  each  spot,  he  w^ould  tell  his 
pupils,  the  yearly  amounts  will  be  very  uniform. 
Here,  he  will  tell  them,  for  more  than  half  the 
year  metal  will  not  rust  under  the  open  sky. 
Here  rain  will  fall  on  almost  every  day  of  the 
year.  In  this  spot  a  few  inches  only  will  damp 
the  ground  during  a  twelvemonth.  But  within 
these  lines  the  quantity  will  not  vary  much  from 


Lessons  of  the  Drought.  109 

three  feet,  and  within  these  tropic  boundaries 
enough  will  be  discharged  to  drown  the  tallest 
men,  while  on  a  few  spots  more  than  twenty- 
feet  will  be  discharged  from  the  clouds.  Here  it 
will  be  given  in  showers,  there  in  storms ;  here 
with  thunder,  there  in  peace.  Over  this  district 
not  a  drop  will  fall,  —  the  sky  will  not  be  so  much 
as  stained  with  vapor,  —  while  he  can  mark  out 
another  region  where  you  can  prophesy,  almost 
to  the  hour,  when  a  three-months'  baptism  will 
be  inaugurated.  The  ratio  of  moisture,  he  would 
tell  them,  lessens  in  running  from  the  equator 
towards  the  poles,  lessens  from  the  sea-coast  in- 
land ;  and  to  variegate  the  rain-map  still  further, 
he  would  distinguish  countries  where  rains  came 
in  winter,  others  where  they  fall  only  in  autumn 
months,  and  others  still  where  they  are  exclusively 
a  summer  blessing.  In  this  way  are  climates 
diversified,  and  the  products  of  the  soil  and  the 
riches  and  happiness  of  man  steadily  provided 
and  sustained. 

Is  there  not  this  wildness  and  waywardness  in 
the  earth's  order,  this  apparent  wandering  of  each 
element  "  at  its  own  sweet  will,"  that  the  religious 
sense  might  be  swept  and  stimulated  by  it,  that  a 
benevolent  mystery  might  always  swathe  the  sport- 
ive beauty  of  the  world  ?  To  see  annual  order  in 
days  of  chance,  the  direct  path  of  Providence  in 
labyrinthine  windings,  the  expression  of  intelli- 
gent goodness  gleaming  out  of  the  volatile  ca" 
prices  of  natural  force,  —  is  not  this  the  lesson 


no  Lessons  of  the  DroiLght. 

for  our  spirits  to  learn  ?  and  that  we  might  have 
the  joy  of  so  living  that  faith  might  have  the 
quality  of  poetry  in  it,  —  is  not  this,  perhaps,  one 
reason  why  we  are  not  set  in  a  world  whose  order 
is  mechanical,  whose  processes  are  all  capable  of 
being  foreseen,  flowing  dull  and  regular  as  the 
machinery  of  a  mill? 

And  once  in  a  while  the  extreme  of  oscillation 
is  touched,  and  nature  pauses  there  awhile,  as  if 
to  show  us  for  a  moment  how  awful  it  would  be 
if  chance  were  the  ruler,  —  if  we  did  not  have  a 
latent  confidence  that  the  energies  of  nature  are 
held  by  a  will  that  is  friendly  to  our  race.  If  I 
were  in  danger  of  becoming  sceptical,  I  believe 
that  a  fresh  and  vivid  appreciation  of  the  scien- 
tific revelations  concerning  our  globe  would  appall 
me  into  faith.  To  think  of  this  ball  whirling  and 
spinning  about  the  sun,  and  to  be  an  atheist !  its 
covering  less  in  comparative  thickness  than  a 
peach-skin,  and  its  pulp  a  seething  fire,  and  to 
feel  that  we  are  at  the  mercy  of  the  forces  that 
lash  it  like  a  top  around  the  ecliptic,  and  of  the 
raving  flames  that  heave  and  beat  for  vent ;  not 
more  than  an  eighth  of  its  surface  inhabitable  by 
man  ;  seas  roaring  around  him,  tropic  heats  smit- 
ing his  brain,  polar  frosts  threatening  his  blood, 
inland  airs  laden  with  fever,  sea  winds  charged 
with  consumption;  hurricanes  hovering  in  the  sky, 
earthquakes  slumbering  under  our  feet;  the  con- 
ditions of  life  dependent  on  the  most  delicate  oscil- 
lations of  savage  powers  over  which  the  wisest  man 


Lessons  of  the  Drought,  in 

is  powerless  as  a  worm,  —  to  think  of  these  and  not 
to  have  any  confidence  or  belief  in  a  power  supe- 
rior to  these  pitiless  forces,  not  to  have  an  inspiring 
faith  that  the  land  was  made  for  human  habita- 
tions and  experience,  and  is  sheltered  by  a  cease- 
less love  from  the  hunger  of  the  elements  !  Why, 
I  could  as  easily  conceive  of  a  person  making  his 
home  unconcerned  in  an  uncaged  menagerie  as 
of  a  man  at  rest  in  nature,  seeing  what  it  is,  and 
not  feeling  that  it  is  embosomed  in  God  !  Go  to 
nature,  my  brother ;  go  to  the  unroofed  universe ; 
go  to  the  awful  pages  of  science,  not  to  learn 
your  religion,  but  to  learn  your  need  of  it,  —  to 
learn  that  you  are  houseless  without  the  sense  of 
God  as  overarching  you  by  his  power,  pledging 
his  care  to  you,  twisting  the  furious  forces  of  immen- 
sity into  a  protecting  tent  for  your  spirit's  home. 

Think  of  the  fact  which  these  weeks  of  drought 
suggest  to  us,  that  four  months  of  steady  sunshine 
would  ruin  this  nation,  yes,  dry  up  the  best  civili- 
zation on  the  globe:  Four  months  of  uninter- 
rupted summer  sunlight  —  that  which  is  God's 
chief  bounty,  that  which  is  the  most  glorious 
symbol  of  his  purity  and  love,  would  be  as  great 
a  curse  as  could  befall  the  nations  which  live  in 
the  temperate  climes.  It  would  breed  general 
famine ;  it  would  sweep  away  the  cunning  and 
wisdom  of  the  world.  So  dependent  are  we  on 
alternations  of  God's  benefits  !  so  needful  is  the 
assurance  which  religious  faith  alone  can  give, 
that  the  pendulum  of  nature  will  not  pause  at  the 


112  Lessons  of  the  Drought. 

extremity  of  its  arc,  but  swing  back  in  season  to 
save  the  earth  from  utter  desolation  and  death  ! 
The  drought  that  has  been  visited  upon  this 
country  has  extended  over  the  greater  portion 
of  it,  but  it  has  not  visited  the  parallel  climates 
of  the  other  hemisphere. 

The  enormous  masses  of  vapor  which  on  those 
hot,  cloudless  days  were  drawn  into  the  upper  air 
were  carried  by  the  west-winds  across  the  ocean. 
England,  France,  Germany,  and  Spain  have  been 
largely  supplied,  most  bounteously  blessed,  with 
rain  and  the  rich  promises  of  harvest.  The 
atmospheric  exchange  has  been  greatly  in  favor 
of  Europe.  So  that  we  see  the  world  is  one. 
Providence  is  not  wholly  forgetful  of  his  children 
even  in  seeming  calamities.  Looking  more  deeply 
into  the  scantiness  of  water,  we  are  led  to  the  laws 
that  oversweep  the  ocean,  and  bind  both  con- 
tinents into  unity  of  life  in  the  regard  of  heaven. 
It  was  expected  that  we  should  be  called  upon  to 
feed  the  European  peoples  with  our  corn  more 
largely  than  before,  because  of  their  absorption  in 
war.  We  have  supplied  them,  but  it  is  with  our 
water  itself,  the  raw  material  of  grain,  not  with 
the  distilled  and  ripened  product.  We  have  sent 
it  to  them,  not  in  solid  clippers,  but  noiselessly,  in 
cloud  ships,  and  poured  it  directly,  unhampered 
by  corn-laws,  upon  their  fields.  It  is  calculated 
that  our  loss  in  this  country  by  the  recent  dryness 
will  be  nearly  or  quite  two  hundred  millions  of 
dollars,  evaporated  by  the  sun,  —  three  millions 


Lessons  of  the  Drought.  1 1 3 

a  day  lapped  up  into  its  golden  light.  It  would 
be  a  most  profitable  investment  if  the  loss  of  it 
could  only  teach  our  whole  people  the  mystery  of 
nature,  lead  them  to  a  devout  recognition  of  God, 
ennoble  their  lives  by  insight  into  the  beneficent 
plan  in  which  their  being  is  embosomed,  and 
strike  away  from  their  minds  those  mechanical 
and  atheistic  habits  of  thought  which  rob  the 
world  of  its  poetry,  and  so  hide  from  us  the  splen- 
dors of  the  Infinite,  and  rob  us  of  the  comfort  of 
conscious  dependence  upon  God.  We  paid  more 
than  two  hundred  millions  for  the  war  with  Mex- 
ico, and  the  purse  of  the  Republic  felt  the  drain 
but  slightly.  And  if  the  anxiety  with  which  the 
farmers  of  the  country  have  looked  into  the  sky 
for  two  months  past,  the  prayers  they  have  offered 
in  heart  for  rain,  the  sadness  with  which  they  have 
seen  the  corn  wither  and  the  grass  grow  sallow, 
could  all  be  put  to  the  account  of  religion,  could 
deepen  permanently  the  sense  of  dependence,  and 
ingrain  the  habit  of  reference  to  God,  so  that 
henceforth  showers  should  seem  to  be  poured 
from  his  urns,  and  the  alternations  of  sun  and 
cloud  be  felt  as  his  handiwork,  and  full  harvests 
acknowledged  as  his  bounty,  the  conscience,  heart, 
and  character  of  the  land  would  be  raised  to  such 
a  degree  that  the  millions  lost  for  it  would  be  un- 
worthy of  a  thought  in  comparison  with  the  new 
and  nobler  prosperity  that  would  be  showered 
upon  the  country.  The  drought  would  be  laden 
with  rivers  of  spiritual  mercy. 


1 14  Lessons  of  the  Drought, 

The  drought,  too,  suggests  vividly  at  this  time 
one  of  those  poetic  truths  of  nature  which  offer 
themselves  as  the  richest  symbols  of  religion. 
We  live  upon  the  rain.  We  eat  and  drink  in 
one  form  or  another  the  juices  that  drop  from 
the  clouds.  Animal  life  is  fed  from  the  clover, 
grass,  and  hay  in  which  the  rain  and  dew  are 
transmuted ;  and  we  feed  upon  the  vegetables  at 
the  second  remove,  and  upon  the  animals  at  the 
third  remove,  from  the  water  of  the  showers  and 
the  storms.  The  Greek  mythology  has  a  picture 
of  the  Goddess  of  Beauty  as  born  miraculously 
from  the  foam  of  the  sea.  This  is  only  a  feeble 
statement  of  the  scientific  fact  that  all  natural 
beauty,  all  the  verdure  of  meadows,  all  the  fo- 
liaged  stateliness  of  trees,  all  the  glory  of  blos- 
soms and  flowers,  rise  out  of  the  sea,  —  are  trans- 
formations of  the  moisture  which  the  deep  gives 
to  the  air.  The  book  of  Job  asks  the  sublime 
question,  "  Hath  the  rain  a  father  ? "  Modern 
science  answers  yes,  it  is  the  daughter  of  the  sun 
and  the  ocean,  and  it  is  the  soul  —  almost  soul 
and  substance  —  of  all  that  clothes  the  earth  and 
feeds  its  countless  multitudes.  O  the  rich  mys- 
tery of  the  simple,  tasteless  rain!  Drawn  out  of 
the  salt  reservoirs  of  the  deep,  and  transmitted 
into  a  thousand  liquors  —  a  miracle  at  every  step 
—  for  the  food  of  man  !  If  God  should  drop  our 
bread  and  meat,  our  rice  and  flour  and  fruits, 
every  day  into  our  homes  by  a  myriad  miracles, 
how  solemnly  would  the  fact  touch  our  religious 


Lessons  of  the  Drought  1 1 5 

sensibilities,  how  devout  we  should  all  be,  how 
deep  our  feeling  of  dependence,  how  close  would 
the  Eternal  Presence  seem !  But  how  is  it 
now?  Is  the  fact  any  less  wonderful?  Is  not 
greater  beauty,  a  more  radiant  and  more  various 
mystery  added  to  it  by  the  present  arrangement 
of  Providence  ?  Is  any  chemist  wise  enough  to 
tell  how  it  is  that  this  simple  rain-water  drawn 
fresh  by  the  sunbeams  out  of  saltness  is  turned, 
in  the  same  field,  by  passing  through  different 
stalks  and  trunks,  into  apple-juice  and  pear- 
flavor,  peach-blood  and  plum-pulp,  —  the  liquid 
life  of  the  nectarine,  the  strawberry  the  grape, 
and  the  melon  ?  Can  he  explain  how  the  lemon 
gets  its  acid  from  it  and  the  sugar-cane  its  sweet  ? 
how  it  yields  such  full  and  luscious  juices  to  the 
orange  and  such  substance  to  the  banana  ?  how  it 
gives  its  milk  to  the  cocoa-nut,  and  to  the  pine- 
apple its  refreshing  savor?  All  these,  yes,  and 
all  the  grains  and  fruits  of  the  earth,  grow  out  of 
the  bitter  sea.  They  come  to  us  from  the  sea  by 
the  way  of  the  clouds.  Their  common  life  drops 
from  heaven  as  if  to  tell  us  that  it  is  by  heavenly 
bounty,  as  if  to  make  us  look  up,  —  look  up 
before  we  are  bewildered  by  the  subtle  and  en- 
trancing miracles  through  which  God  delights  out 
lips  with  it  at  last.  And  how  few  of  all  that  are 
thus  nursed  by  the  clouds  think  at  all  of  the  cir- 
cuit of  the  waters  from  the  heaving  brine  to 
the  vapors  in  heaven,  and  thence  through  the 
vines  and  orchard  to  the  tables  of  men  ?     How 


ii6  Lessons  of  the  Drought, 

many  of  us  are  wondering  if  God  really  cares 
for  us ;  how  many  of  us  are  uncertain  whether 
there  is  an  Infinite  Providence,  and  are  longing 
for  some  striking  and  startling  evidence  of  his 
care  1  "  O  for  a  miracle,  —  to  see  but  one  ! "  per- 
haps we  say. 

When  we  pray,  "Give  us  this  day  our  daily 
bread,''  this  is  what  we  pray  for:  "O  Infinite 
Lord,  continue  to  us,  as  heretofore,  the  order  of 
the  seasons,  the  balance  of  the  forces  that  belt 
the  world.  Remove  not  thy  control,  spare  not 
thy  care,  for  we  are  dependent  on  thy  watchful- 
ness and  mercy  for  the  harvest  which  drops  tq  us 
directly  as  the  manna  of  the  Israelites  out  of  the 
sky."  The  sunshine  is  the  wand  which,  waved 
over  nature  when  the  clouds  have  broken,  calls 
out  the  countless  bounties  of  the  earth.  If  the 
rain  is  withheld  it  curses  the  soil  and  is  the  great 
destroyer.  Such  subtle  fitness  was  there  in  the 
passage  wherein  Jesus  linked  them  together  in  his 
sermon,  —  "  For  he  causeth  his  sun  to  rise  on  the 
evil  and  on  the  good,  and  sendeth  rain  on  the  just 
and  on  the  unjust." 

Do  not  think  that  this  is  mere  abstract  religious 
truth,  without  practical  import  and  power.  Is  it 
nothing,  is  it  a  trifle,  to  look  upon  nature  with 
purged  and  penetrative  eyes,  to  catch  its  meaning 
in  the  pure  depths  of  a  Christian  heart,  to  live  in 
it  as  Christ  did,  and  see  that  it  is  full  of  whispers 
of  the  Highest,  and  that  all  its  processes  are  sym- 
bols of  God's  spiritual  approach  to  us  and  com- 


Lessons  of  the  Drought.  117 

munion  with  us  ?  I  do  not  believe  there  is  any 
possibility  of  a  constant  and  rich  religious  life  un- 
til we  feel  that  nature  is  quick  with  God,  its  laws 
his  method,  its  forces  his  will,  the  light  his  favor, 
the  rains  his  bounty,  all  natural  beauty  his  smile, 
droughts  and  blights  still  the  hidings  of  his  good- 
ness, and  the  interblended  friendship  of  the  forces 
of  the  universe  the  architecture  of  his  provident 
wisdom,  that  man  may  have  a  home. 

Not  only  by  inviting  our  thought  to  the  secrets 
of  natural  order  does  the  dry  season  offer  to  stim- 
ulate the  religious  sentiment,  but  it  gives  us  some 
new  language,  some  important  symbols  for  stating 
some  of  the  important  spiritual  laws  of  life.  The 
hot  sunshine,  withering  the  fields  by  its  incessant 
floods,  tells  us  anew  that  unmixed  blessings  in  the 
soul's  world  are  usually  evils.  Sunlight  is  the  em- 
blem of  prosperity  ;  darkness  and  clouds  of  ad- 
versity and  trial.  And  in  how  many  men  has  the 
religious  life  shrunk  and  dried  because  of  unin- 
terrupted fortune  and  plenty !  Sufferers  are  drawn 
toward  God  ;  afflicted  hearts  feel  the  Infinite  Pres- 
ence ;  from  cold  and  cloudy  circumstances  aspi- 
rations, prayers,  and  blessings  go  up  to  the  Lord 
of  love.  Probably  from  every  other  condition  of 
life,  more  religious  recognition  and  service  rises  to 
the  Father  than  from  full  and  never-failing  plenty 
and  days  of  constant  cheer.  Not  without  insight 
did  the  writer  of  the  book  of  Job  say,  "  In  pros- 
perity the  destroyer  shall  come,"  nor  the  author 
of  the  Proverbs  declare,  "  The  prosperity  of  fools 


1 1 8  Lessons  of  the  Drought, 

shall  destroy  them."  The  sunshine  must  alternate 
with  cloud  and  shower  before  fragrance  can  be 
shed  from  the  blossoms  of  the  heart.  Perhaps  as 
the  angels  look  upon  some  men  who  have  never 
known  any  form  of  adversity,  they  see  and  say 
that  there  is  too  much  sunshine  on  their  souls, 
they  are  suffering  for  want  of  suffering,  they  are 
parching  into  worldlings  because  no  clouds  roll 
up  into  their  sky,  which  are  the  most  blessed  cre- 
ations of  the  sun,  and  which  veil  the  heavens  for 
a  season  from  our  eyes,  that  they  may  open  them 
continually  to  our  hearts.  What  depth  of  truth 
in  the  old  utterance  of  the  Bible,  "But  now 
men  see  not  the  bright  light  that  is  within  the 
cloud." 

Again,  we  see  the  spiritual  truth  that  most  good 
is  done  to  us  in  our  days  of  discipline,  stated  in 
the  fact  that  the  days  of  drought  are  really  the 
days  of  supply.  The  sun  is  drawing  water  then ; 
storing  the  upper  treasure-houses,  preparing  for 
future  rains  and  harvests.  So  the  hot  sorrows  of 
the  world,  those  which  make  the  deepest  draught 
on  the  great  ocean  of  tears,  fill  the  air  of  general 
sentiment  with  generous  vitality,  spot  it  with  soft 
and  benignant  clouds,  and  robe  our  life  with  its 
sweetest  verdure  evoked  by  the  soft  streams  of 
pity  and  sympathy.  Follow  out  the  threads  of 
the  best  blessings  of  society,  those  feelings  and 
facts  that  make  us  something  more  than  traders 
and  pleasure-seekers,  and  we  are  led  soon  to  the 
woes  and  the  mysteries  of  experience. 


Lessons  of  the  Drought,  119 

But,  lastly,  the  sadness  which  this  material  dry- 
ness spreads  over  the  face  of  nature  suggests  the 
features  of  a  spiritual  drought,  from  which,  per- 
haps, we  shall  not  be  relieved  so  easily  as  from  the 
outward  one.  The  moral  world  is  the  chief  vine- 
yard of  God,  and  alas,  how  little  bloom,  as  yet, 
in  history,  has  his  eye  seen  upon  it!  All  the 
mournful  aspects  which  the  grain  and  grass  fields 
of  the  North  and  West  now  show  to  the  human 
eye,  —  blight,  dryness,  dust,  and  dearth,  —  the 
spiritual  acres  unfold  nearly  all  the  time  to  the 
Eternal  view.  Sin  is  blight.  Not  one  feature, 
influence,  or  product  of  it  can  be  stated  or  illus- 
trated by  anything  lovely  and  promising  in  nature. 
It  is  canker,  mildew,  rot,  worm,  fever,  sand,  bar- 
renness, desolation.  Every  item  of  the  dreary 
picture  of  natural  suffering  on  the  farms  of  our 
land  is  paralleled  on  a  higher  plane  in  the  condi- 
tion of  souls  that  are  destitute  of  heavenly  rain. 
The  grace  of  God,  the  visits  and  presence  of  his 
spirit,  are  presented  in  the  Bible  as  dew  and 
showers,  large  measures  of  the  early  and  latter 
rain.  Just  as  the  trees  have  no  inward  vitality  save 
what  they  absorb  from  the  moist  legacies  of  the 
sky,  we  have  none  save  what  comes  to  us  from  the 
Infinite  grace  and  life.  Think  of  an  irreligious, 
an  atheistic  tree  or  vine  !  One  that  should  refuse 
to  receive  the  dew  and  showers  into  its  fibres  ; 
refuse  to  clothe  itself  with  leaves,  and  distil  juices 
within  its  bark,  and  fulfil  its  call  to  service  by  feed- 
ing and  ripening  its  fruit !    You  cannot  conceive 


120  Lessons  of  the  Drought, 

such  a  thing.  If  you  could,  you  cannot  conceive 
that  a  farmer  would  keep  it  on  his  land.  An  ap- 
ple-tree that  should  deliberately  store  its  twigs 
with  bitter  and  poisonous  balls,  a  grape-vine  that 
should  fill  its  clusters  with  ashes  and  dust!  He 
would  cut  it  down  and  burn  it  as  a  lump  of  veg- 
etable iniquity,  as  more  than  a  cumberer  of  the 
ground. 

But  with  ourselves  how  is  it  ?  Why  is  God  so 
patient  with  his  world  ?  Why  so  patient  with  us  ? 
Is  it  because  of  the  service  we  render  him  ?  Is  it 
because  of  the  joy  he  finds  in  our  spiritual  verdure 
and  beauty  ?  We  are  set,  like  the  vines  and  plants 
of  the  material  soil,  to  receive  the  simple  and  com- 
mon bounty  of  his  grace  from  the  sky,  and  work 
it  over,  each  into  peculiar  virtues  to  enrich  his 
treasury  according  to  our  inward  nature  and  our 
circumstances,  with  a  new  flavor  of  goodness,  — 
one  nation,  one  climate  of  the  church  to  be  trop- 
ical and  another  temperate  in  the  product  of  vir- 
tue. But  we  do  not  our  work  so  well  as  the  trees. 
They  shrink  and  wither  only  when  God  withholds 
their  moisture.  We  are  barren  because  we  will 
not  take  and  fill  our  veins  with  his  grace.  We 
show  the  landscape  of  drought  while  there  is 
plenty  of  rain  and  dew.  God  never  leaves  us  with- 
out spiritual  nutriment,  —  food  for  our  reverence 
and  faith,  and  sweet  sentiments  and  blessed  char- 
ities. And  he  keeps  us  in  his  vineyard  while  we 
do  not  adorn  it ;  he  is  patient  with  us  in  the  pa- 
rental hope  that  we  shall  yet  revive,  and  blossom 


Lessons  of  the  Drought.  I2i 

like  the  rose  to  his  praise  and  joy.  Let  his  good- 
ness inspire  us  anew.  Let  us  come  closer  to  his 
spirit  Let  us  open  our  hearts  to  him,  and  blos- 
som in  his  service.  Let  us  strive  to  fulfil  the 
sweet  assurance  of  the  prophet :  "  Blessed  is  the 
man  that  trusteth  in  the  Lord,  and  whose  hope 
the  Lord  is.  For  he  shall  be  as  a  tree  planted  by 
the  waters,  and  that  spreadeth  out  her  roots  by 
the  river,  and  shall  not  see  when  heat  cometh, 
but  her  leaf  shall  be  green  ;  and  shall  not  be  care- 
ful in  the  year  of  drought,  neither  shall  cease  from 

yielding  fruit." 

1854. 


122     The  Christian  and  the  Heathen  Dollar. 


VIII. 

THE  CHBISTIAN  AND  THE  HEATHEN  DOLLAR. 

"  And  they  brought  unto  him  a  penny.     And  he  saith  unto  them, 
"Whose  is  this  image  and  superscription  ? "  —  Matthew  xxii.  19, 20. 

IN  the  light  of  the  religion  of  Jesus,  everything 
belonging  to  the  circle  of  our  life  must 
be  classed  either  as  Christian  or  heathen.  If 
we  do  not  live  any  differently,  or  try  to  live  any 
differently,  under  the  instructions  and  privileges 
of  Christian  truth,  from  the  way  men  lived  before 
Christ  came  into  the  world,  then  we  are  essen- 
tially heathen,  and  our  proper  place  is  back  in  the 
centuries  that  preceded  Jesus,  or  off  in  the  coun- 
tries that  lie  beyond  the  light  of  his  religion.  Every 
person  whose  goodness  does  not  wear  some  hue, 
and  is  not  vital  with  some  element,  which  Jesus 
shed  into  society,  —  whose  virtue  is  the  gift  of  a 
happy  temperament  and  good  natural  dispositions 
alone,  and  does  not  include  the  spirit  of  consecra- 
tion and  sacrifice,  filial  reverence  and  brotherly 
charity,  —  has  a  heathen  character.  I  do  not  say 
that  it  is  a  base,  a  depraved,  a  thoroughly  repul- 
sive character  to  men,  or  even  to  God ;  perhaps 
the  term  good  may  fairly  be  applied  to  it ;  but  it 


The  Christian  and  the  Heathen  Dollar,     123 

is  no  better  than  character  might  have  been  in 
Rome  or  Ephesus  before  Christ  sanctified  our 
earth.  It  does  not  partake  of  the  spirit  which 
distinguishes  our  religion  from  the  dull  twilight  of 
antique  civilization.  It  does  not  rise  above  the 
level  or  possibilities  of  heathenism. 

The  church  has  generally  divided  men  into  two 
classes,  —  depraved  and  regenerate.  This  distri- 
bution is  harsh;  and  it  is  untrue,  for  there  are 
thousands  of  characters  whom  we  cannot  call  re- 
generate, that  it  would  be  still  more  false  to  call 
depraved.  But  we  may  fairly  run  a  dividing  line 
across  the  moral  world  that  shall  separate  people 
into  heathen  and  Christian,  according  as  they  act, 
or  endeavor  to  act,  from  the  inspiration  of  Christ's 
religion,  or  as  they  follow  the  untrained  impulses 
of  their  own  constitution. 

The  old  heathen  empires  have  crumbled  to  dust. 
But  if  a  state  to-day  does  not  recognize  the  su- 
premacy of  God,  and  the  infinite  worth  of  man  in 
its  objects  and  its  laws,  it  is  a  heathen  state.  The 
only  way  in  which  it  can  be  a  Christian  nation  is 
by  seeking  the  good  of  its  citizens  through  its 
statutes  and  its  administrations.  If  it  aims  to 
guard,  establish,  and  extend  peace  and  freedom, 
education,  happiness,  and  order  among  the  mil- 
lions ;  if  power  is  held  and  exercised  as  a  trust, 
so  that  year  by  year  the  people  grow  wiser,  hap- 
pier, and  better  on  account  of  the  government 
they  live  under,  the  state  is  Christian ;  otherwise 
it  is  heathen.    The  titles  of  most  of  the  despotic 


1 24     The  Christian  and  the  Heathen  Dollar. 

monarchs  of  Europe,  I  believe,  include  the  phrase, 
'*  Most  Christian  Majesty."  But  to  judge  by  the 
spirit,  objects,  and  result  of  their  government, 
the  robberies,  oppressions,  armies,  and  ignorance 
that  compress  the  people  into  a  groaning  pedestal 
of  a  selfish  aristocracy  and  a  tyrannous  throne,  the 
accurate  title  would  be,  "  His  Most  Heathen  Maj- 
esty," the  Czar  of  Russia,  or  Emperor  of  Austria, 
or  King  of  Naples. 

So  in  regard  to  the  home.  It  is  Christian  in 
every  case  where  something  higher  than  a  worldly 
spirit,  or  constitutional  cheerfulness  of  temper,  or 
simple  refinement  of  intellect  and  taste,  presides 
in  it.  It  is  sad  that  in  the  eighteenth  century 
after  Christ  entered  the  homes  of  Cana  and  Beth- 
any there  should  be  any  question  as  to  what  is 
the  spirit  of  the  homes  in  Christian  lands.  Sad 
enough  that  the  privileges  intrusted  to  parents  for 
intermingling  the  spirit  of  reverence,  faith,  and 
prayer,  the  heart  of  charity,  and  the  serious  view 
of  life  as  a  trust,  with  the  very  structure  of  the 
conscience  and  the  mind,  should  be  so  widely  neg- 
lected, so  that  out  of  the  myriad  of  houses  which 
might  all  pour  out  a  rill  of  Christian  life  into  the 
stream  of  society,  only  here  and  there  one  can  be 
called  a  Christian  home,  a  young  church,  which 
the  spirit  of  Jesus  secretly  hallows  ;  but  most  of 
them  are  little  above  the  homes  of  Corinth  or  of 
Athens  in  the  influence  they  exert  for  the  redemp- 
tion of  the  soul. 

The  same  distinction  runs  into  the  world  of 


The  Christian  and  the  Heathen  Dollar,     1 25 

trade.  A  merchant  is  either  heathen  or  Chris- 
tian. Where  honor  underlies  the  counting-room, 
and  the  warehouse  is  built  on  the  rock  of  integ- 
rity, so  that  floods  and  storms  cannot  wash  it 
away ;  where  the  trader  or  the  broker  feels  that 
unspotted  character  is  worth  more  than  all  money 
which  stains  or  shadows  reputation,  and  that  any 
fortune  would  be  gained  at  a  desperate  bargain 
that  turned  upon  a  falsehood  or  a  trick,  there  is  a 
Christian  merchant,  there  is  a  mercantile  struc- 
ture that  stands  out  in  the  light  of  Christian  civil- 
ization, and  belongs  to  the  landscape  of  Christ's 
church  as  much  as  the  spire  of  the  meeting-house, 
or  the  intricate  beauty  of  the  cathedral  dome. 
But  where  gain  is  the  object,  and  selfishness  is  the 
law,  of  the  office,  the  factory,  or  the  store,  and  the 
man  hesitates  at  nothing  which  is  safe  that  will 
increase  his  profit  line,  and  bends  his  soul  to  the 
very  lowest  customs  and  artifices  that  will  allow 
him  to  remain  in  the  arena  of  traffic,  the  man  is 
a  heathen  merchant,  and  belongs,  with  all  his  es- 
tates, among  the  pagans  of  ancient  Sidon  and  the 
corrupt  traders  of  Tyre. 

The  incident  in  the  text  leads  us  to  apply  the 
same  distinction  to  money.  Jesus  took  a  coin  in 
his  hand  and  asked,  "Whose  image  and  super- 
scription is  this  ? "  It  was  a  Roman  coin.  The 
head  and  the  name  of  the  emperor  were  stamped 
upon  it.  It  was  the  money  through  which  the  Jews 
in  Palestine  paid  tribute  to  the  power  of  Rome.  Its 
currency  showed  that  the  Hebrews  were  a  subject 


1 26     The  Christian  and  the  Heathen  Dollar. 

people ;  and  there  was  a  phrase  with  the  Phari- 
sees running  thus  :  "  Wheresoever  the  money  of 
any  king  is  current  there  the  inhabitants  acknowl- 
edge that  king  for  their  lord."  All  this  is  sym- 
bolic of  spiritual  meanings.  A  dollar  may  be 
Christian  or  may  be  heathen.  The  coins  we  use 
in  our  daily  traffic  are  of  different  metal,  and  are 
differently  stamped  with  mottoes  and  devices,  ac- 
cording to  the  country  from  which  they  come. 
Some  of  them  show  the  pillars  that  represent  the 
government  and  power  of  Spain.  Some  of  them 
bear  the  eagle  of  Mexico.  Now  and  then  we  have 
a  gold  one  beautiful  with  the  insignia  of  France. 
The  EngHsh  sovereign  wears  the  likeness  of  the 
imperial  queen,  and  our  own  dimes  and  dollars 
and  eagles  show  to  the  eye  the  countenance  of 
Liberty,  and  the  royal  bird  whose  extended  wings 
are  symbolic  of  the  two  oceans  that  stretch  out 
from  the  body  of  our  continental  territory. 

But  besides  these  visible  pictures  which  the  die 
impresses  upon  the  metal,  all  our  money  has  a 
moral  stamp.  It  is  coined  over  again  in  an  in- 
ward mint.  The  uses  we  put  it  to,  the  spirit  in 
which  we  spend  it,  give  it  a  character  which  is 
plainly  perceptible  to  the  eye  of  God,  —  a  char- 
acter as  clear  as  if  it  were  written  on  it  in  human 
language.  All  our  dollars,  beyond  those  spent  for 
the  primal  necessities  of  existence,  of  course  are 
expended  at  the  bidding  of  certain  tastes  and 
loves,  and  the  proportion  of  our  spending  for  the 
luxuries  of  life  betrays  the  dominating  forces  of 


The  Christian  and  the  Heathen  Dollar,     127 

our  character,   and  so   infuses  a  representative 
quality  into  the  coin. 

Money  is  a  great  implement  for  affecting  society 
and  our  own  spiritual  welfare.  The  controversy 
which  Christ  has  with  the  world  concerning  the 
use  of  money  is,  not  that  so  much  is  used  for  ma- 
terial objects  and  needs,  not  that  so  much  is  spent 
for  the  refinements,  the  graces,  and  the  elegant 
pleasures  of  society,  but  that  of  the  vast  millions 
that  are  spent  every  year  for  purposes  beyond  the 
bodily  and  family  wants,  such  a  very  slight  pro- 
portion is  consecrated  to  beneficent,  generous, 
merciful,  holy  purposes.  It  is  that  so  few  of  our 
guineas  and  eagles  are  coined  over  at  the  Divine 
treasury,  and  bear  witness  to  our  consecration  to 
the  cause  of  truth,  the  will  of  God,  and  the  good 
of  man.  This  is  the  great  probe-question  for  all 
persons  that  are  not  positively  poor,  at  any  rate 
for  every  wealthy  man,  What  proportion  of  your 
surplus  income  do  you  devote  to  the  doing  of 
good,  to  the  help  of  religion  and  humanity?  If 
your  yearly  list  of  expenses  should  be  inspected 
in  heaven,  what  report  would  it  bear  as  to  your 
reverence,  your  faith,  your  charity  ?  How  much  of 
the  silver  tide  that  is  steadily  flowing  from  your 
treasury  quickens  the  good  causes  of  the  world, 
helps  the  race,  and  makes  the  heavens  rejoice  ? 
In  a  word,  how  many  Christian  dollars  have 
dropped  from  your  hands  out  of  the  hundreds 
that  you  have  scattered  ?  A  man  of  means  has 
the  right  to  use  money  for  the  gratification  of  del- 


128     The  Christian  and  the  Heathen  Dollar, 

icate  tastes,  and  for  the  purchase  of  refined  pleas- 
ures. It  is  well  that,  in  a  community  like  ours, 
money  should  be  held  ready  to  procure  the  enjoy- 
ment of  travelling,  to  deepen  the  love  of  nature, 
or  to  purchase  books  and  pictures  that  will  charm 
the  eye  and  adorn  the  home,  or  to  listen  to  lec- 
tures and  concerts  that  will  bring  the  soul  into 
communion  with  the  best  eloquence  and  music  of 
the  time,  or  to  increase  the  pleasure  and  multiply 
the  bonds  of  graceful  social  intercourse.  But  so 
long  as  man  is  a  religious  being  it  is  not  right,  it 
is  a  crying  sin,  that  we  should  be  so  unfaithful 
with  our  purses  to  the  highest  of  all  claims  upon 
our  gold,  and  that,  as  soon  as  we  rise  above  the 
calls  for  food,  clothing,  and  shelter,  we  calcu- 
late how  much  we  can  spare  for  selfish  enjoy- 
ments, and  never  take  into  account  the  duty  of 
apportioning  some  of  our  means  to  the  highest 
calls,  so  that  our  contributions  for  God's  purposes 
shall  bear  their  proper  ratio  to  what  we  freely  give 
for  our  own  gratification  and  joy.  The  Almighty 
made  us  religious  beings  as  well  as  artistic  beings  ; 
he  has  given  us  a  conscience  as  well  as  an  ear  for 
music,  a  heart  bound  in  with  the  fortunes  of  hu- 
manity as  well  as  a  taste  for  melody  and  beauty. 
The  man  that  always  seems  to  have  a  dollar  or 
two,  or  even  five  dollars,  ready  for  a  concert  that 
offers  an  attractive  bill,  and  always  feels  poor  as 
soon  as  a  good  object  is  proposed  which  seeks  his 
contribution,  who  curtails  on  charities  to  be  lib- 
eral on  pleasures,  —  such  a  man  sins ;  he  corrupts 


The  Christian  and  the  Heathen  Dollar,     1 29 

the  coin  of  the  world  ;  he  swells  the  number  of 
selfish  and  heathen  dollars  in  society ;  he  is  faith- 
less to  his  duty  and  privilege  of  coining  over  some 
of  the  wealth  that  is  given  to  him  into  Christian 
silver.  Alas,  how  many  such  men  there  are  among 
us !  They  seem  to  have  the  purse  of  Fortunatus, 
inexhaustible,  so  long  as  opportunities  invite  them 
to  feed  their  elegant  appetites;  the  bank  has 
money  in  abundance  for  pictures  and  pleasures, 
fine  dresses  and  sight-seeing,  beautiful  books  and 
operas  and  travel  ;  but  when  a  case  of  distress  is 
mentioned,  or  a  large  demand  for  some  good  in- 
stitution presents  itself,  or  a  Christian  subscription- 
paper  alights  upon  their  desks,  they  are  so  poor. 
How  suddenly  their  circumstances  have  changed  ; 
they  feel  compelled  by  conscience  to  retrench  their 
expenses  ;  business  has  not  been  so  good  of  late ; 
if  their  good  wishes  will  help  you,  you  can  go  away 
strengthened  from  their  presence,  otherwise  your 
call  is  wasted  time. 

Again,  then,  we  say  that  it  is  the  duty  of  every 
man  with  any  means  to  observe  proportion  in  his 
surplus  expenses  ;  to  have  a  conscientious  order 
with  regard  to  the  service  which  his  superfluous 
dollars  discharge.  Over  against  every  prominent 
allowance  for  a  personal  luxury,  the  celestial  rec- 
ord-book ought  to  show  some  entry  in  favor  of  the 
cause  of  goodness  and  suffering  humanity ;  for 
every  guinea  that  goes  into  a  theatre,  a  museum, 
an  athenasum,  or  the  treasury  of  a  music  hall,  there 
ought  to  be  some  twin-guinea  pledged  for  a  truth^ 
6*  I 


130     The  Christian  and  the  Heathen  Dollar. 

or  flying  on  some  errand  of  mercy  in  a  city  so 
crowded  with  misery  as  this.  Then  we  have  a 
right  to  our  amusements  and  our  graceful  pleas- 
ures. Otherwise  we  have  no  right  to  them,  but 
are  liable  every  moment  to  impeachment  in  the 
court  of  righteousness  and  charity  for  our  treach- 
ery to  heaven  and  our  race. 

I  love  to  think  sometimes  of  what  goes  on  in 
the  mint,  where  our  country's  currency  is  struck, 
during  the  course  of  a  year.  A  stream  of  virgin 
silver  and  gold  is  flowing  into  its  doors,  steadily, 
every  day.  From  California  and  Mexico  and 
Peru  and  Russia  and  Australia,  perhaps,  it  finds 
its  way  there  through  the  pipes  of  commerce,  — 
innocent  metal,  valueless  in  itself,  fresh  from  the 
treasury  of  the  earth,  whence  it  was  arrested  by 
the  enterprise  and  toil  of  human  hands.  And 
there  it  is  purified,  smelted,  strengthened  by 
alloy,  and  prepared  for  the  die,  and  re-born  into 
beautiful  coin.  All  of  it  receives  the  impress  of 
our  country's  emblems.  The  image  and  super- 
scription of  Caesar,  the  State,  are  stamped  upon  it. 
But,  from  the  moment  when  it  goes  forth  into  the 
world,  it  ceases  to  be  merely  political  coin,  it  will 
not  serve  the  necessities  of  commerce  alone.  How 
might  a  man  moralize  over  a  large  heap  of  those 
beautiful  gold  drops  before  they  go  to  have  their 
purity  soiled  by  the  rough  usage  of  human  hands. 
How  many  of  you,  he  might  say,  are  going  to  be 
the  currency  of  selfishness,  to  be  coined  over  by 
the  chill  spirit  of  avarice,  and  to  have  the  symbol 


The  Christian  and  the  Heathen  Dollar.     131 

which  the  mint  has  left  upon  you  effaced  by  the 
figure  of  Mammon,  and  the  miserly  mottoes  that 
will  be  graved  upon  you  when  you  become  the 
instruments  and  objects  of  selfish  greed?  Some 
of  them,  the  prophetic  eye  might  see,  were  going 
to  be  spent  for  intemperate  indulgence,  to  be 
offered  on  the  altar  of  Bacchus,  and  so  morally 
to  be  recoined  with  his  reeling  figure  bloated  upon 
it,  and  that  awful  text  from  his  gospel,  "  Let  us 
eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die."  Others,  it 
might  be  seen,  were  on  their  way  to  the  hot  prizes 
of  the  gaming-table,  the  innermost  sanctuary  of 
the  pit,  where  feverish  eyes  should  be  fastened 
upon  them  and  desperate  hearts  stake  their  last 
treasure  for  them,  and  where  they  seem  almost 
visibly  to  gleam  with  the  fiery  portrait  of  Satan, 
his  chosen  medallions,  that  burn  every  hand  un- 
lucky enough  to  win.  Others  go  to  purchase 
learning  and  culture  and  the  recorded  thoughts 
of  genius,  and  upon  them  the  image  and  super- 
scription of  Apollo  and  Minerva  are  outlined. 
Some,  again,  will  wear  the  forms  of  the  Graces  or 
the  Muses,  inlaid  into  their  substance  by  the 
human  tastes  that  make  them  serve  as  minis- 
ters. If  the  eye  could  foresee  what  ones  would 
go  on  missions  of  mercy,  would  strengthen  the 
interests  of  truth,  would  put  wings  on  good  ideas, 
would  endow  beneficent  institutions  with  new  power, 
would  carry  sympathy  and  help  to  the  bed  of  some 
poor  sufferer,  kindle  a  fire  upon  the  desolate 
hearth,  spread  a  meal  upon  the  table  of  destitu- 


132     The  Christian  and  the  Heathen  Dollar. 

tion,  clothe  a  pallid  and  shivering  child,  or  give  it 
some  training  of  mind  or  heart,  —  those,  a  man 
might  say,  are  the  Christian  coins.  It  should  seem 
that  they  ought  to  gleam  more  brightly  among 
the  heaps  where  they  lie.  The  form  of  Christ  is 
really  stamped  upon  that  silver  and  gold,  and  his 
superscription,  "  It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to 
receive,"  enwreathes  his  image  with  immortal  truth. 
Those  are  the  dollars  that  look  precious  in  the 
sight  of  heaven.  The  touch  of  benevolence  trans- 
mutes them  into  eternal  possessions.  Who  would 
not  wish  to  own  them  ?  Who,  when  the  hour  of 
death  comes,  would  not  prefer  to  have  spent  such 
coin  ?  What  pleasure  or  profit  would  then  look 
so  bright,  or  give  such  comfort  as  the  retrospect 
of  these  golden  benefactors  of  the  world  !  "  Lay 
up  for  yourselves  treasures  in  heaven,"  said  Jesus. 
We  cannot  take  the  currency  of  this  world  there, 
but  every  dollar,  every  dime,  we  have  spent,  so 
that  the  picture  of  Christ  has  been  stamped  upon 
It,  has  become  spiritual  currency.  Moth  and  rust 
cannot  corrupt  it ;  it  passed  on  the  instant  after 
our  use  of  it  upward  as  an  eternal  investment  in 
the  treasury  of  God. 

"  Render  unto  Caesar  the  things  which  are  Cae- 
sar's, and  unto  God  the  things  which  are  God's." 
Some  of  our  money  belongs  to  Caesar,  or  this 
world  ;  but  some  of  it  also  belongs  to  God,  —  be- 
longs to  him  just  as  some  of  our  thoughts  and 
our  reverence  and  our  heart's  gratitude  and  wor- 
ship belong  to  him.     It  is   theft,  it   is   robbery 


The  Christian  and  the  Heathen  Dollar,     133 

to  keep  it  back.  Everything  that  may  do  good, 
which  men  hold  in  their  possession,  is  a  trust,  — 
genius,  influence,  reputation,  time,  money,  every- 
thing that  may  do  good,  is  a  trust,  and  if  we  with- 
hold it  from  doing  good  we  violate  a  command- 
ment that  reads,  "Thou  shalt  not  steal "  ;  we  deny 
the  truth  which  runs,  "  All  souls  are  mine."  The 
money  which  we  spend  is  heathen,  all  of  it,  if 
some  portion  of  it  is  not  devoted  gold.  In  some 
countries  there  are  tithe-laws  which  set  apart  one 
tenth  of  all  the  income  of  the  people  for  the  sup- 
port of  the  Church.  We  have  properly  wiped 
those  from  our  statute-books.  But  we  shall  never 
wipe  out  the  supreme  tithe-law  written  upon  our 
conscience,  justified  by  the  fact  that  we  are  put 
into  this  world  for  service  and  under  bonds  of 
trust,  which  rightfully  call  for  a  portion  of  our 
income  and  substance  for  the  service  of  God. 
Men  deny  more  the  doctrine  of  trust  and  feel  less 
the  duty  of  service  in  respect  of  money  than  of 
all  other  things.  And  if  Christ  could  return  to 
the  earth  now  and  sit  in  judgment  upon  us,  and 
show  us  the  way  of  duty,  the  consecration  of 
money  would  be  the  great  thing,  I  believe,  which 
he  would  strive  to  impress  upon  us ;  and  if  he 
could  call  us  all  before  him  with  our  coins,  —  all 
the  coins  that  we  have  spent  in  our  years  of 
responsibility, —  one  of  his  most  serious  questions 
would  be,  as  he  inspected  each  of  them,  "Whose 
image  and  superscription  is  this  ? "  And  as  he  saw 
them  so  generally  stamped  with  the  figures  of 


134     ^'^^  Christian  and  the  Heathen  Dollar, 

Pleasure  and  Mammon,  he  would  ask  in  a  tone 
that  would  search  the  secret  places  of  our  souls, 
"  Where  are  those  that  have  been  rendered  unto 
God  by  the  good  that  they  have  done  in  the 
world  ? " 

If  we  have  not  considered  our  duties  seriously 
enough  in  this  matter,  now  is  the  time  deliberately 
to  accept  them.  There  are  a  thousand  ways  in 
a  city  like  this  in  w^hich  our  coin  may  be  pledged 
to  the  Almighty,  and  take  the  image  and  super- 
scription of  Christ.  The  most  important  method 
I  would  speak  of  is  direct  and  continuous  inter- 
est, on  the  part  of  each  family  that  has  a  compe- 
tence, in  some  destitute  person  or  family,  whose 
condition  they  can  know,  and  around  whom  their 
care  and  sympathy  may  be  a  wall  of  protection. 
The  season  is  upon  us  that  suggests  our  duties  to 
the  needy.  The  suffering  in  Boston  every  winter 
is  immense.  But  it  might  be  greatly  relieved, 
almost  wholly  so,  if,  in  addition  td  the  institutions 
that  have  organized  Christ's  love,  each  family  that 
can  afford  to  would  seek  out  some  one  miserable 
chamber  or  desolate  cellar,  and  do  what  it  can  to 
supply  its  inmates  with  work  and  food  and  cheer. 
And  then  what  an  immense  spiritual  benefit 
would  result !  How  much  good  would  be  done  to 
our  own  characters,  how  much  sweet  peace  breathed 
around  our  own  hearts,  from  the  consciousness  of 
the  heavenly  benediction  !  how  much  joy  from  the 
assurance  that  some  of  our  dollars,  commissioned 
on  errands  of  mercy,  were  bearing  the  image  and 
superscription  of  Christ ! 


The  Christian  and  the  Heathen  Dollar,     135 

Or,  again,  we  may  consecrate  some  of  our  dol- 
lars to  the  most  advantage  by  practical  interest  in 
organizations  of  benevolence,  especially  in  that 
which  was  started  last  winter  in  this  part  of  the 
city,  and  which  this  winter  will  stretch  its  network 
over  the  whole  of  Boston.  It  is  not  casual  charity, 
emotional  charity,  but  systematic  and  principled 
charity  that  we  need  for  the  help  of  our  characters 
and  the  purity  of  our  money.  This  is  what  the  poor 
need  also.  And  this  they  can  have  through  this  gen- 
erous and  vigorous  organization,  if  we  will  help  that 
organization  by  contribution  and  sympathy.  It  will 
do  incalculable  good  this  winter  among  us,  if  we 
will  determine  that  it  shall,  if  we  will  replenish  its 
treasury  with  Christian  dollars,  that  will  stand  as  a 
bulwark  against  the  social  heathenism  that  over- 
shadows the  poor. 

Thanksgiving-time  is  nearing  us,  too,  and  we 
may  consecrate  some  of  our  gold  in  the  good  old 
custom  of  substantial  charity  to  the  needy.  Let 
us  remember  the  poor  that  day,  at  least.  Let  us 
seek  some  family  in  straitened  circumstances,  and 
confess  the  law  of  brotherhood  by  spreading  for 
them  a  full  board,  around  which  they  may  bless 
the  good  Providence  for  the  bounties  of  the  har- 
vest. Let  not  that  beautiful  custom  die  out  of  the 
New  England  heart.  Let  us  consecrate  some  day 
of  this  week  to  such  worship  of  charity  by  our 
hands.  They  are  Christian  dollars  that  kindle  up 
the  spirit  of  joy  in  chilled  hearts,  and  carry  the 
light  of  hope  and  courage  into  gloomy  homes. 

1852 


IX. 

THE  DIVINE  ESTIMATE  OF  DEATH. 

"  For  he  is  not  a  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living ;  for  all  live 
unto  him."  —  Luke  xx.  -^^Z. 

DURING  the  last  few  weeks  my  own  thoughts 
have  been  more  than  usually  engaged  with 
the  problem  of  death.  September,  according  to 
my  pastoral  experience,  seems  to  be  a  crisis- 
month, —  the  season  when  the  great  destroyer 
marks  those  who  are  to  be  called  soon  into  his 
silent  realm.  From  the  beauty  and  peace  of  the 
summer,  not  overshadowed  by  the  knowledge  of  a 
single  death  in  the  parish,  scarcely  disturbed  by 
the  tidings  of  any  serious  sickness  in  our  families, 
I  returned  to  the  city  to  see  the  joys  and  hopes  of 
many  homes  suddenly  smitten;  to  witness  the  sor- 
row of  those  who  watch  the  shadow  swift  travel- 
ling towards  them,  which,  before  long,  must  wrap 
their  households  and  their  hearts  in  gloom  ;  and 
to  meet,  with  such  consolations  and  prayers  as 
Christian  faith  can  offer  and  inspire,  friends  who 
are, rent  by  the  various  forms  of  anguish  with 
which  death,  in  the  various  modes  of  its  dispen- 
sation, wrings  the  soul.    A  mother  taken  suddenly, 


The  Divine  Estimate  of  Death,       137 

in  perfect  health  and  early  womanhood,  from 
a  home  pervaded  with  domestic  peace  and  joy ;  a 
father  called  away  in  the  full  strength  of  manhood 
from  labors  just  ripening  into  large  prosperity, 
and  affections  that  were  strewing  his  way  with  the 
sweetest  flowers ;  a  bereaved  wife,  stunned  by  the 
tidings  of  a  husband's  sudden  death  by  pestilence 
in  a  Southern  city,  just  when  a  welcome  was  ready 
for  his  promised  return ;  the  convulsive  grasp  of 
the  hand,  and  a  strong  man's  bitter  tears,  amid 
the  throng  on  State  Street,  as  he  told  me  that  he 
must  soon  part  from  a  companion  more  precious 
to  him  than  the  light  of  the  sun,  and  whose 
strength  he  had  supposed  the  summer  would  re- 
vive. These  are  some  of  the  experiences  which, 
in  two  or  three  recent  weeks,  have  concentrated 
the  interest  of  my  own  mind  and  heart  upon  the 
mystery  of  death. 

And  now  again,  this  morning,  our  prayers  have 
been  asked  and  given  for  another  sorrow.  One 
who  had  worshipped  here  ever  since  this  spacious 
house  was  consecrated  has  been  lifted  up,  since 
we  last  met,  to  worship  in  the  building  of  God, 
"  the  house  not  made  with  hands."  After  a  long 
life,  almost  filled  up  to  the  measure  of  threescore 
years  and  ten,  —  a  life  blessed  with  ample  meas- 
ures of  domestic  happiness,  and  yet  tried  with 
searching  griefs ;  a  life  of  patient  fidelity  to  se- 
cluded duties ;  a  life  whose  latest  stages  lay  through 
physical  distress  from  which  hardly  an  hour  was 
wholly  free,  but  still  hallowed  by  an  uncomplain- 


138       The  Divine  Estimate  of  Death, 

ing  religious  resignation,  ceased  suddenly  without 
a  moment's  warning,  as  quietly  as  a  tired  infant 
sinks  to  sleep.  And  to-day  the  aged,  afflicted, 
lonely  husband  turns  to  God  with  the  prayer  of 
the  solitary  soul,  and  the  bereaved  family  come 
with  chilled  hearts  to  seek  the  warmth  and  com- 
fort of  the  Infinite  Love. 

Such  are  the  ways  in  which  one  who  observes 
the  ordinary  dispensations  of  providential  trial, 
the  common  order  of  human  suffering,  is  made 
to  feel  the  heart's  need  of  the  highest  faith,  and  to 
search  for  the  goodness  that  ordains  bereavement 
Yes,  and  in  addition  to  all  these  single  and  more 
private  instances  of  sorrow,  the  whole  community 
has  been  startled  and  shocked,  as  never  before  in 
recent  years,  by  the  terrible  tragedy  of  the  sea.* 
Into  more  than  a  hundred  homes  how  have  the 
tidings  of  it  penetrated  as  lightning,  desolating 
hearts  and  withering  forever  the  earthly  possi- 
bilities of  joy !  Let  us  not  dwell  upon  this.  The 
words  are  profane  that  attempt  to  describe  such 
sorrow.  With  a  prayer  for  those  who  are  smitten 
thus,  called  to  meet  a  heavier  woe  than  they  who 
went  down  in  the  sea,  let  us  leave  them  with  God. 
How  did  that  news  go  into  our  homes,  breathing 
strange  terror  around  the  fireside  I  How  did  it 
intrude  on  the  exchange  between  the  hearts  of 
merchants  and  their  schemes  of  gain  !  How  has 
it  sent  a  thrill  of  horror  over  the  whole  conti- 
nent, interrupting  in  a  thousand  towns  the  earthly 

*  The  loss  of  the  steamer  Arctic. 


The  Divine  Estimate  of  Death.       1 39 

avocations  with  its  message  of  death !  How 
deeply  has  it  sunk  into  countless  hearts,  leading 
them  to  silent  questionings  of  the  ways  of  Provi- 
dence !  I  know  not  how  it  has  been  with  others, 
but  with  me  every  incident  of  that  scene,  gathered 
from  various  reporters,  and  individualizing  its 
mighty  woe,  has  been  as  a  stab  like  that  of  a  near 
personal  loss  \  and  during  these  last  few  days  I 
have  been  haunted  by  the  vision  of  that  proud 
«teamer  settling  into  the  gray-curtained  ocean, 
whose  waves  the  skill  of  man  had  constructed 
her  to  trample  with  foaming  wheels,  and  plunging 
into  the  salt  Atlantic  with  her  precious  freight  of 
hearts,  whose  thoughts  of  home  and  prayers  to 
God  were  quenched  in  a  moment  in  its  deep,  still 
solitudes. 

This  picture  has  led  all,  no  doubt,  more  or  less 
to  unusual  interest  in  the  questions  of  Providence. 
How  shall  we  think  of  death?  In  the  light  of 
what  principles  shall  we  look  at  its  suddenness, 
its  terrors,  the  inequalities  of  its  dispensations, 
and  the  miseries  it  scatters  so  thickly  in  the  path 
of  those  that  are  left  behind  ?  Religion  as  a  sys- 
tem of  truth  finds  its  highest  expression,  brings 
all  its  truths  to  a  focus,  as  it  were,  in  the  view  it 
reveals  of  death.  And  so  any  man's  faith  or  want 
of  faith,  the  quality  of  his  faith  or  the  degree 
of  his  scepticism,  breaks  out  in  the  tone  of  his 
feeling  concerning  this  greatest  question  that  tries 
the  human  mind.  How  can  it  be  benevolent 
in   Providence  so  to  desolate  the  earth?     How 


140       The  Divine  Estimate  of  Death, 

can  it  be  benevolent  to  blight  so  many  blossoms 
of  homes,  in  sweeping  such  crowds  of  the  young 
by  ruthless  diseases  into  the  grave  ;  to  hurry  away 
so  many  of  the  mature  when  their  strength  and 
ministry  are  so  much  needed ;  to  snatch  so  many 
of  the  guilty  without  warning  in  their  sin ;  to 
close  up  the  path  of  duty  and  pleasure  before 
such  multitudes  to  whom  life  was  just  opening 
full  of  promise,  and  whose  stay  here  is  essential 
to  so  many  hearts  ?  How  can  God  permit  in  his 
world  such  scenes  as  that  which  has  recently  har- 
rowed our  bosoms,  or  look  down  complacently 
upon  all  those  terrible  wrecks  which  during  the 
last  few  months  have  invested  the  ocean  with  such 
pitiless  might  ?  Men  would  have  saved  those  en- 
dangered lives  if  they  could.  Every  resource  of 
wealth  and  nautical  skill  would  have  been  freely 
pledged,  from  a  hundred  ports  along  our  coasts, 
to  rescue  the  passengers  of  that  pierced  steamer, 
if  her  peril  could  have  been  prophesied.  "  Did 
Heaven  look  on,  and  would  not  take  their  part  ?  '* 
Why  are  wars  possible,  and  why  must  tens  of 
thousands  of  dedicated  men  die  seemingly  for 
nothing?  How  shall  we  think  of  death,  and 
make  the  dispensation  of  it  harmonize  with  any 
faith  in  the  goodness  of  the  Almighty  ? 

I  will  not  pretend,  brethren,  that  we  can  under- 
stand it  wholly.  In  a  world  where  we  cannot 
comprehend  anything  fully,  it  would  be  strange  if 
we  could  thoroughly  understand  the  mission  of 
death,  and  the  beneficence  of  its  ordering  in  the 


The  Divine  Estimate  of  Death,       141 

plan  of  Providence.  But  there  are  one  or  two 
great  principles  which  w^e  should  keep  in  mind  in 
connection  with  it,  that,  in  my  view,  do  relieve  the 
most  trying  instances  of  it  of  much  of  their  gloom. 
And  it  certainly  is  a  great  thing,  a  most  desirable 
thing,  to  bring  the  exceptional  cases  —  those  in 
which  its  mystery  presses  the  heaviest  upon  our 
sensibilities  —  into  the  general  range  of  the  diffi- 
culties that  attend  it ;  to  gain  such  a  view  of  it 
that  the  extraordinary  cases  shall  seem  no  more 
perplexing  than  the  average  ones,  and  will  come 
easily  under  the  general  law.  Many  persons,  I 
doubt  not,  whose  faith  is  not  tried  much  by  the 
common  messages  of  death  that  sunder  human 
fellowships,  and  inflict  sorrow  upon  hearts,  are 
greatly  disturbed  by  these  unusual  instances,  by 
such  awful  accidents  as  the  recent  one.  If  they 
could  get  light  on  these  exceptional  cases,  if  they 
could  feel  that  they  are  no  more  hard  to  under- 
stand than  the  ordinary  ones,  their  minds  and 
religious  feelings  would  be  greatly  relieved. 

Of  course,  the  highest  light  would  be  gained 
on  the  whole  subject  if  we  could  know  how  God 
regards  death;  what  estimate  he  puts  upon  the 
continuance  of  our  mortal  years,  and  with  what 
death  is  associated  in  his  omniscient  eye.  I  be- 
lieve we  must  settle  down  upon  this  principle, 
that  God  does  not  make  any  account  of  physical 
life  in  his  government  of  the  world.  You  may 
be  startled  at  first  by  the  statement,  but  it  is  true 
and  sublime,  and  there  is  comfort  in  it.     We  ac- 


142      The  Divine  Estimate  of  Death, 

count  our  physical  existence  everything  ;  we  would 
give  everything  generally  in  exchange  for  it ;  we 
cling  to  it  with  all  our  thoughts  and  with  all  our 
strength,  as  our  chief  possession  ;  we  cannot  see 
beyond  it ;  unless  we  have  the  clearest  Christian 
faith,  our  plans  spontaneously  assume  the  fact  that 
death  is  the  end  of  everything  desirable ;  and  so, 
to  us,  the  greatest  of  mysteries  is  that  by  which 
the  threads  of  life  are  hacked  and  snapped  so 
lawlessly  from  the  earthly  loom.  But  with  God 
this  physical  existence  is  a  trifle.  And  why?  Be- 
cause to  him  there  is  no  death.  He  looks  over 
that  mist  which  is  so  thick  before  our  vision,  and 
he  sees  only  life  in  his  universe.  To  him  there 
are  no  dear  forms  buried  in  the  sea,  no  mothers  im- 
prisoned in  the  tomb,  no  children  hidden  under  the 
sod,  no  companions  vanished  into  an  all-surround- 
ing gloom,  no  soldiers  blown  from  the  cannon's 
mouth  into  non-existence,  but  a  wide,  illimitable 
sphere  of  light  and  vitality  and  blessed  discipline. 
In  the  Infinite  view  there  is  not  a  cemetery  in  the 
universe,  there  is  not  a  grave  on  any  globe  that 
gleams  in  the  sky.  For  there  is  no  cessation  nor 
interruption  of  life  caused  by  that  which  seems  to 
us  death.  The  body,  as  he  looks  upon  it,  is  the 
spirit's  garment  only ;  and  however  we  are  called 
to  meet  death,  whether  by  slow  disease  or  by  water 
or  by  fire  or  by  tempest,  at  the  end  of  years  or  in 
youth  or  in  the  full  powers  of  manhood,  on  the 
sick-bed  or  the  battle-field,  to  his  vision  it  is  but 
the  stripping  off  of  a  robe  and  the  liberation  of 


The  Divine  Estii^ate  of  i)ip4h,      I^}/ 
the  clothed  essence  into  Hii' 


"  He  is  not  the  God  of  the  dead, 


efA^m^  of  b^i^i^a^         ^ 
^^t  af^V living  ;^\^ 


for  all  live  unto  him."  ^      ^  ^^^^^^^         ^^ 

forces  and  arrangements^f  ihvi^ 
ifriendly  to  human  life ;  this  is     *^ 


This  is  why  the 
world  seem  so  un 

why  we  are  permitted  to  be  at  the  mercy  of  the 
tornado  and  the  pestilence,  of  changes  of  air,  and 
the  countless  perils  and  accidents  of  sea  and  land, 
where  no  guilt  can  attach  to  those  that  are  snatched 
away.  This  lower  form  of  life,  I  believe,  is  of  trifling 
consequence  to  the  Infinite  Spirit,  because  to  him 
there  is  no  death  whatever,  because  to  him  that 
which  seems  death  to  us  is  less  even  than  sleep, — 
a  vanishing  of  the  real  person  from  one  realm  of 
life  and  a  hastening  into  another  and  a  higher  one. 

O,  if  we  could  have  for  a  moment  a  glimpse  of 
the  universe  as  God  looks  upon  it! — one  glowing, 
vivid,  boundless  field  of  life  ;  every  death-chamber 
an  anteroom  of  the  infinite  temple ;  every  death- 
hour  a  triumph-hour  of  entrance  through  an  arch 
of  shadow  into  eternal  day ;  the  whole  earth  ex- 
haling spirits  into  the  upper  heights  of  life,  as  the 
soil  and  the  ocean  send  up  their  moisture  in  con- 
stant and  invisible  streams ;  no  more  loss  of  souls 
than  there  is  of  drops  when  the  briny  ocean  yields 
its  fresh  vapor  to  the  touch  of  the  warm  sun,  — 
if  we  could  see  this  wondrous  and  magnificent 
process  of  life,  of  which  seeming  death  is  one  of 
the  dark  agencies,  although  it  might  not  dry  our 
tears  and  subdue  our  grief,  would  it  not  lift  off  all 
the  burden  of  mystery?      Would  it  not,  in  our 


144      1^^^^  Divine  Estimate  of  Death, 

theories  of  the  world,  at  least  remove  the  gloom 
that  settles  so  heavily  over  the  sudden  calls  of 
those  we  loved,  and  the  accidents  that  hurry- 
crowds  of  our  fellows  beyond  our  mortal  sight? 
And  so,  brethren,  I  believe  it  is  our  feeble  vision 
and  scepticism  that  darken  life  so  with  the  mys- 
tery of  death.  Try  to  think  of  the  world  as  God 
looks  upon  it,  and  the  problem  is  illumined.  We 
think  very  faintly  of  the  future,  while  to  God  it  is 
the  great  reality.  Our  thoughts  gravitate  around 
the  tomb,  which,  in  God's  regard,  is  the  point  of 
ascension,  and  no  more  gloomy  than  that  hill  in 
Galilee  from  which  Jesus  floated  up  into  heaven. 
Talk  to  me  of  this  life,  as  so  many  Christians 
talk,  as  though  it  is  a  final  state  of  probation,  de- 
ciding our  eternal  state  and  destiny,  and  I  cannot 
understand  it.  I  cannot  understand  the  unequal 
appointments  of  privilege ;  the  unequal  provi- 
dences that  summon  souls  away  from  it ;  the  ac- 
cidents and  chances  that  hurry  thousands,  unpre- 
pared, into  a  terrible  eternity,  while  others,  more 
guilty,  live  on  for  repentance  and  the  opportunity 
of  salvation.  Nay,  I  can  understand  so  much  of 
life  as  this,  that  in  such  a  light  it  is  a  mighty  mis- 
fortune and  horror.  But  let  me  feel,  by  a  thorough 
faith  of  mind  and  soul,  that  it  is  the  first  stage 
of  endless  existence,  and  that  God  sees  it  all- 
embraced  with  infinite  light,  with  opportunities 
of  infinite  training  and  blessedness,  swarming 
with  beings  whose  bodies,  broken  by  death,  will 
shed   an  undying  substance   into   a   stable  uni- 


The  Divine  Estimate  of  Death,       145 

verse,  and  however  solemn  the  duties  of  life  may 
be,  and  however  serious  the  alienation  from  God 
in  any  heart  must  be,  and  however  bitter  the  be- 
reavements which  sudden  death  and  fearful  acci- 
dents ordain  must  be  for  those  who  lose  the  sweet 
companionship  that  blessed  their  earthly  way,  still 
the  aspect  of  the  world  is  cheerful,  and,  rising  by 
faith  into  that  view  which  the  Infinite  Spirit  takes 
of  this  existence,  I  can  say  it  is  all-glorious  and 
inspiring,  since  neither  tribulation  nor  distress 
nor  persecution  nor  famine  nor  nakedness  nor 
peril  nor  the  sword  can  separate  us  from  the  love 
of  God  and  his  great  boon  of  life. 

The  public  belief  of  our  day  does  injustice  to  the 
spirit  of  Christianity  in  the  view  it  inspires  of 
death,  investing  it  with  a  cheerless,  chilly  solem- 
nity that  is  pagan  in  its  influence,  making  men 
cling  with  tighter  tenacity  to  this  world,  as  though 
it  contains,  and  is,  our  chief  good.  Something 
awful  is  suggested  as  lying  just  the  other  side  of 
its  shadow,  fearful  even  to  the  saint,  while  God's 
hungry  laws  are  portrayed  lying  couched, — fierce, 
tiger-like,  —  to  spring  upon  every  unsanctified 
spirit  as  it  emerges  from  the  grim  gateway  of  the 
grave. 

Brethren,  the  solemnity  of  religion  attaches  to 
character,  not  to  death.  States  of  soul  are  solemn 
things.  The  question  what  principles  rule  you  is  a 
solemn  question.  But  death,  the  disrobing  of  the 
flesh,  is  not  peculiarly  so,  —  not  any  more  so  than 
all  life  is,  not  any  more  than  any  crisis-season  of  life 
7  J 


146       The  Divine  Estimate  of  Death, 

is  which  shows  you  what  you  are,  and  makes  you 
taste  the  quality  and  sediment  of  your  disposition 
and  love.  God  is  as  j  ust  and  good  beyond  the  grave 
as  here.  If  you  are  not  afraid  of  him  here,  there  is 
no  reason  why  you  should  fear  him  there.  He  rules 
you,  rewards  or  punishes  you,  in  the  deeps  of  your 
soul  now  just  as  he  will  there.  You  are  in  his 
presence  every  moment.  His  government  is  a 
spiritual,  not  a  mechanical  one.  He  has  no  visi- 
ble judgment-seat.  If  you  are  not  afraid  to  go 
to  sleep  under  the  guard  of  his  still  starlight,  and 
to  wake  in  the  morning  in  his  lighted  world  of 
matter, — to  wake  with  the  same  character  you 
had  when  you  slept,  —  you  ought  not  to  be  afraid 
to  wake  in  the  luminous  world  of  spirit  into  which 
we  rise  after  the  quick  unconsciousness  of  death. 
It  is  God's  love  you  rise  into.  You  yourself  are 
the  only  thing  to  be  afraid  of.  Sin  is  all  you 
ought  to  fear.  And  the  coarse  eloquence  that 
invests  death  with  such  lurid  terror  degrades  the 
real  importance  of  all  life,  turns  off  the  fear  of 
the  soul  from  where  it  should  always  rest,  and 
makes  punishment  seem  worse  than  evil.  It  is 
just  as  bad  for  you,  and  just  as  sad  a  thing,  just 
as  dangerous,  to  retire  to-night  with  a  mean,  selfish, 
unchristian  disposition  and  rise  to-morrow  with 
it,  as  it  is  to  walk  into  the  shadow  of  the  grave 
with  it,  and  take  it  into  the  full  splendors  of  eter- 
nity. It  is  the  Infinite  love  you  deny  or  discard 
in  both  cases,  —  the  love  that  would  do  everything 
for  you,  if  you  would  open  your  heart.      Sin  is 


The  Divine  Estimate  of  Death,      147 

gloomy.  Death  itself  is  cheerful.  It  has  the 
sublimest  relations.  It  opens  the  way  for  sinner 
and  saint  into  the  morning,  into  new  opportuni- 
ties of  service  and  worship,  into  new  discipline, 
into  just  as  much  joy  as  the  state  of  the  heart  will 
permit  and  can  receive.  If  you  care  for  life  at 
all,  you  should  contemplate  death  with  triumph. 

You  will  observe  that  I  have  called  attention 
to  this  principle,  the  view  which  God  takes  of 
death,  in  order  to  show  that,  as  he  looks  upon 
the  universe,  all  apparent  death  is  the  same  thing, 
in  whatever  form  it  may  come,  and  thus,  that  the 
great  accidents,  the  extraordinary  incidents,  are 
no  more  mysterious  to  him  than  the  common 
ones  ;  since,  so  far  as  those  that  seem  to  die  are 
concerned,  the  whole  experience  is  nothing  but  a 
lifting  up  of  souls  to  an  intenser  life.  At  every 
moment  all  the  spirits  that  ever  have  been  on 
this  globe  and  all  other  globes  are  living  unto 
him.  "  Jesus  Christ,  who  hath  abolished  death,'* 
—  put  it  away,  annihilated  it,  —  has  an  object 
of  thought  that  is  the  standpoint  from  which 
as  Christians  we  are  to  regard  the  world.  The 
real  mystery  of  death  in  its  relations  to  Provi- 
dence is  thus  reduced  to  the  sufferings  of  those 
that  depart  and  of  the  friends  that  remain.  If 
all  those  who  perished  physically  on  board  the 
Arctic  had  died  singly,  at  different  times  in  the 
course  of  the  next  year,  or  month,  in  their  homes, 
by  ordinary  disease,  surrounded  by  their  friends, 
no  person's  faith  perhaps  would  have  been  strongly 


148      The  Divine  Estimate  of  Death, 

tried  by  contemplating  the  account  of  loss  and 
suffering,  item  by  item.  It  would  not  have 
strained  the  faith  ,in  Providence,  in  the  average 
of  religious  men,  very  hard.  But  when  all  are 
brought  together  in  one  picture  and  in  one  mo- 
ment, and  the  whole  agony  of  that  hour  is  associ- 
ated with  the  anguish  of  friends  that  hear  the 
tidings,  our  religious  convictions  are  assailed  as 
by  a  battering-ram.  And  yet,  for  those  who  died 
in  the  sea  the  physical  suffering  may  not  have 
been  so  great  as  the  ordinary  diseases  that  extin- 
guish life  would  have  caused;  doubtless  it  was 
not  so  great  as  some  of  them  endured  who  were 
saved  from  the  catastrophe.  And  so  far  as  each 
person  that  was  taken  is  concerned,  the  death  in 
God's  sight  was  a  gain.  As  each  one  of  them 
went  into  the  higher  domain  of  life,  the  exchange 
of  modes  of  existence  was  seen  and  felt  to  be  a 
blessing.  We  must  not  therefore  judge  of  Provi- 
dence by  the  imperfections  of  our  mental  capaci- 
ties in  appreciating  the  facts  of  his  government. 
Our  bodies  are  but  the  boats  of  the  spirit,  in 
which  it  sails  on  the  sea  of  matter ;  and  if  our 
faith  is  not  startled  much  when  they  plunge  singly 
into  the  deep,  leaving  the  spirit  that  was  buoyed 
in  them  alone  with  God,  ought  our  faith  to  be 
startled  any  more  because  we  see  scores  of  them 
go  down  together,  leaving  scores  of  their  immor- 
tal pilots  free  to  enter  together  the  ethereal 
sphere  ?  If  we  could  see,  in  one  moment,  all  the 
deaths  that  take  place  to-day,  and  all  the  sorrow 


The  Divine  Estimate  of  Death,      149 

that  attends  them,  it  would  wring  our  sympathies 
most  fearfully;  but  would  it  alter  the  fact  that 
death  is  the  introduction  to  a  higher  life  ?  Would 
it  dim  in  any  way  the  splendor  of  the  scene  as 
God  looks  down  upon  it,  or  change  the  principles 
which  we  should  feel  to  be  applicable  to  each 
isolated  instance  of  departure  ?  To  God,  seeing 
that  his  nature  is  perfect,  there  are  none  of  the 
surprises,  none  of  the  shocks,  none  of  the  half- 
views,  which  shake  us  and  wrench  us  and  be- 
cloud us  so.  He  looks  over  the  whole  field,  over 
the  whole  plan  of  discipline,  every  moment ;  while 
we  are  lamenting  over  shattered  hopes  and  terri- 
ble disasters  with  tortured  sensibilities,  the  souls 
in  his  realm  are  rejoicing  at  the  crowds  of  new- 
comers into  the  splendors  of  eternity.  Our  death- 
wails  here  are  birth-songs  there. 

And  as  to  the  suffering  of  the  friends  that  are 
bereaved  by  losses,  we  can,  I  think,  in  the  light 
of  one  or  two  principles,  see  more  benevolence  in 
it  than  the  first  shock  would  lead  the  soul  to  sus- 
pect. Here,  again,  we  must  take  God's  point  of 
view,  and  not  man's.  It  is  plain  that  death  is  a 
necessity  here  \  that  we  cannot  live  in  physical 
frames,  on  the  globe,  forever.  It  is  equally  plain, 
I  think,  that  it  is  very  much  better  that  death 
should  not  come  regularly,  and  sweep  away  only 
frames  that  are  aged,  and  have  nothing  more  to 
live  for  on  earth.  Who  will  doubt  that  there  have 
been  most  purifying  and  blessed  influences  left 
upon  souls  by  the  death  of  those  they  loved,  — by 


150       The  Divine  Estimate  of  Death. 

the  removal  of  an  infant,  or  a  sweet  child,  or  a 
revered  father,  a  dear  mother,  a  precious  wife, 
an  honored  husband  ?  If  everybody  lived  to  a 
worn-out  old  age,  if  death  were  a  calculable 
experience,  there  would  be  no  hallowing  sorrow ; 
there  would  be  no  interweaving  of  the  spiritual 
world  with  this  by  the  tenderest  affection,  as  there 
is  now  through  the  casual  strokes  of  the  destroyer. 
If  the  earth  is  so  sensual,  selfish,  sense-bound, 
and  hard-hearted  now,  what  would  it  be  if  there 
were  hone  of  those  softening,  humanizing,  faith- 
inspiring  ministries  of  sorrow  ? 

And  if  God  has  this  meaning  in  ordaining  that 
no  age  or  state  shall  be  free  from  a  call  to  a 
higher  w^orld,  can  we  not  see  that  he  intends  to 
teach  us  something  by  the  frequent  suddenness  and 
unexpectedness  of  departure ;  by  the  fortuities, 
so  terrible  to  the  senses,  that  often  sweep  hun- 
dreds, in  a  moment,  beyond  our  sight?  May  it 
not  be  that  he  tries  to  teach  us  in  this  way  some- 
thing of  the  frailty  of  life ;  to  impress  it  upon  us, 
as  it  could  not  be  done  under  any  other  order  ? 
And  does  he  not  see,  perhaps,  that  enough  spirit- 
ual good  is  done  by  this  outwardly  sad  feature  of 
temporal  discipline,  to  atone,  and  more  than  atone, 
for  its  apparent  terror  ? 

And  if  spiritual  good  is  done  by  such  a  method, 
it  is  beneficent  in  God  to  maintain  it.  When  your 
child  cries  for  something  which  you  know  will  in- 
jure it ;  when  it  cries  to  sit  up  when  you  know  its 
frame  needs  sleep ;  when.it  insists  on  playing  and 


The  Divine  Estimate  of  Death,      151 

being  happy  in  its  own  way,  when  you  know  it 
must  not  have  its  own  way ;  when  it  is  in  bitter 
distress  at  some  discipline  which  you  know  is  for 
its  good,  —  the  world  is  dark  to  the  child ;  its  whole 
universe  is  enrobed  in  sadness  and  mystery  for  a 
moment :  but  you  think  nothing  of  it ;  it  is  all 
clear  enough  to  you ;  for  you  see  that  nothing 
could  be  so  bad  for  the  budding  nature  as  to  be 
happy  for  the  moment,  after  its  own  caprice. 
From  God's  point  of  view  it  is  the  same,  I  believe, 
with  his  vast  family.  Whatever  will  increase,  or 
contribute  to  increase,  our  spiritual  qualities,  is 
perfectly  beneficent  in  his  vision;  and  as  he  looks 
upon  the  moral  universe,  there  is  light  in  these 
sudden,  terrible  catastrophes  of  his  providence, 
since  those  whom  we  speak  of  as  dead  are  only 
lifted  higher,  and  since  the  permission  of  such 
swift  removals  tends  to  the  culture  of  faith  and 
piety  here. 

Another  principle,  too,  although  in  a  lower  plane 
than  those  we  have  thus  far  treated,  should  be  con- 
sidered in  relation  to  such  disasters  as  the  recent 
loss  of  the  ocean  steamer.  It  is  one  of  the  plain 
facts  in  God's  government  of  the  world  that  no 
unusual  providence  of  his  will  interfere  to  lessen 
the  need  of  human  wisdom  and  experience  in 
mastering  or  in  respecting  the  laws  of  nature. 
One  of  the  great  objects  of  human  life  plainly 
is  to  gain  knowledge,  and  to  act  upon  it,  in  regard 
to  physical  and  settled  laws.  And  God  deliber- 
ately allows  the  greatest  expense  of  mortal  life  in 


152       The  Divine  Estimate  of  Death, 

perfecting  a  great  principle.  How  many  lives  are 
spent  in  purchasing  an  experience  of  medicines 
and  a  knowledge  of  the  healing  art  and  a  perfec- 
tion of  surgical  skill  !  Wherever  we  turn,  we  find 
wisdom  built  on  death.  God  esteems  physical 
life  so  slightly  that  he  allows  it  to  be  squandered 
profusely  in  the  purchase  of  wisdom,  the  comple- 
tion of  science,  the  rebuke  of  negligence  and  reck- 
lessness, and  the  acquisition  of  a  circumspect  and 
wary  skill.  One  of  the  lessons  which  the  human 
intellect  is  now  set  to  learn  is  the  wisest  and  safest 
method  of  navigating  the  ocean  in  a  fog.  There 
is  a  wise  way  of  doing  it,  and  a  safe  way ;  it  lies 
within  the  power  of  the  human  mind  to  master  it, 
and  to  act  according  to  it ;  and  we  may  be  sure  that 
no  providence  will  arrest  a  single  law  that  threat- 
ens our  ignorance,  or  avert  a  single  calamity  that 
punishes  our  neglect.  The  comparative  safety  of 
the  sea  now  is  due  to  triumphs  of  the  human  mind, 
stimulated  by  danger  and  disaster.  In  future  ages, 
doubtless,  the  safety  will  be  perfect  through  the 
service  of  such  catastrophes  as  we  deplore  to-day. 
Brethren,  it  is  a  blessed  thing  to  be  lifted  up 
above  our  own  imperfect,  partial  vision  to  God's 
view  of  his  universe.  And  the  first  thing  for  us 
to  keep  in  mind,  in  our  bewilderment  before  the 
mystery  of  death,  is  this  :  that  God  counts  our 
physical  life  very  cheap.  Hundreds  of  millions 
of  us  he  sweeps  from  the  globe  every  century. 
Nothing  seems  more  trifling,  nothing  of  less  con- 
sequence, in  his  regard  than  our   mortal   exist- 


The  Divine  Estimate  of  Death.       153 

ence.  The  organization  of  the  dust,  the  structure 
of  the  rocks,  are  more  precious  to  him  than  our 
physical  fabric  of  body  and  soul,  —  they  endure 
while  we  perish.  Physical  life  is  the  cheapest 
thing,  because  the  real  life  is  indestructible  and 
invaluable.  The  Infinite  Spirit  sees  no  death, 
and  he  has  prepared  a  broad  realm  of  discipline, 
education,  worship,  and  joy,  in  the  light  of  which 
all  momentary  bereavements  are  nothing  more 
than  little  dots  of  darkness.  Here  is  the  value 
of  the  great  doctrine  of  faith.  It  is  taking  a 
higher  hand,  —  it  is  lifting  ourselves  above  mortal 
limitations  to  catch  the  lighted  sweep  of  vision 
that  spreads  out  before  a  perfect  mind.  What 
privilege  like  this  can  be  offered  to  human  nature  t 
What  other  boon  can  be  offered  to  it  here  that  will 
give  it  such  triumph  —  easy,  joyous  triumph  —  over 
the  ills  of  life  ?  If  I  had  been  on  that  steamer,  I  do 
not  know  that  I  should  not  have  been  timid,  ter- 
rified, smitten  to  the  heart  with  doubt  and  cow- 
ardly dismay ;  but  if  the  principles  that  come  to 
me  in  my  best  hours  could  have  been  there  with 
me,  I  am  sure  that  I  should  have  had  inward  calm- 
ness. There  might  have  been  some  instinctive 
physical  recoil  from  the  mode  of  death  and  the 
mystery  of  dissolution ;  but  I  could  have  had  no 
doubt  as  to  God  and  his  infinite  goodness,  and  the 
immense  personal  gain  of  sinking  away  from  all 
the  beauty  and  love  and  fellowships  of  this  world 
into  the  deeper  ocean  of  his  mercy,  the  glorious 
spaces  of  his  spiritual  day. 


154      T^^^^  Divine  Estimate  of  Death, 

We  do  not  think  enough  of  God ;  that  is  our 
infirmity,  that  is  the  bitterness  of  our  distress. 
In  such  times  as  these,  in  all  times  of  perplexity 
and  sorrow,  turn  away  from  the  earth  and  look  up. 
Think  of  the  Infinite  Wisdom ;  think  of  the  Infi- 
nite Care  ;  think  of  the  Infinite  Love.  God  hears 
our  sighs  and  counts  our  tears.  If  we  could  see 
his  methods  and  fathom  his  plans,  we  should  re- 
joice in  disaster ;  we  should  rejoice  in  everything 
but  sin,  which  is  a  turning  away  from  him.  Believe 
in  immortality.  Strive  for  more  of  that  faith  of 
Christ  which  sees  that  God  is  not  a  God  of  the 
dead,  but  of  the  living,  since  all  live  under  him. 
Then  shall  we  have  the  repose  and  peace  of 
Christ.  Then  the  suddenness  of  death  darkening 
our  homes  will  not  break  our  trust,  for  we  shall 
think  of  the  light  into  which  the  departed  rise. 
Then  accidents  shall  not  break  our  confidence. 
Then 

"  Though  the  earth's  foundations  shake, 
And  all  the  wheels  of  nature  break, 
Our  steadfast  souls  shall  fear  no  more 
Than  solid  rocks  when  billows  roar." 

1854. 


X. 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  SORROWS. 

"  For  whom  the  Lord  loveth  he  chasteneth,  and  scourgeth  every 
son  whom  he  receiveth."  —  Hebrews  xii.  6. 

WE  often  speak  of  the  mystery  or  the  prob- 
lem of  suffering  as  connected  with  relig- 
ion. But  the  problem  is  not  one  simple  question 
or  difficulty.  It  has  two  parts.  The  first  relates 
to  the  ordinance  or  permission  of  suffering ;  the 
second  relates  to  the  apportionment  or  distribution 
of  it. 

A  great  many  persons  are  more  prominently 
interested  in  the  first  inquiry.  They  ask  the  ques- 
tion in  the  general  form,  —  Why  was  sorrow  or- 
dained ?  why  was  not  everything  made  pleasant  for 
the  human  race?  why  has  death  been  allowed? 
whence  the  possibility  of  pain  ?  how  can  the  long 
and  frightful  retinue  of  diseases  be  reconciled 
with  a  benevolent  government  of  the  world  ?  why 
are  the  hostilities  of  society  permitted  ?  why  was 
not  life  ordained  to  be  an  unruffled  and  delightful 
experience,  guarded  by  genial  forces,  and  com- 
pacted into  joy  ? 

Now,  this  general  question  is  not  so  very  diffi- 


156  Distribution  of  Sorrozvs. 

cult  to  answer.  We  can  gather,  by  thought,  a 
broad  stream  of  life  to  offset  the  general  mass  of 
shadow.  Against  the  formula  of  suffering  we  can 
put  a  theory  of  life  which,  in  a  general  way,  will 
account  for  and  justify  the  suffering.  We  can  say 
that  the  world  was  made  for  the  development  of 
human  nature,  intellectually,  morally,  and  spiritu- 
ally, —  in  reason,  will,  and  the  richest  affections. 
We  may  say  that  the  highest  attributes  possible  to 
a  finite  nature  cannot  be  directly  created,  but  must 
be  gained,  wrought  out,  developed  by  strain  and 
struggle.  AVe  may  say  that  all  forms  of  hardship 
which  can  have  a  noble  effect  on  the  mind  and 
the  character  are  justified  by  the  appearance  of 
the  product  wrought  out  through  them. 

It  would  seem  to  be  a  great  hardship  to  a  lump 
of  iron  ore,  if  it  were  conscious,  that  it  should 
have  to  be  melted,  separated  from  its  accretions, 
beaten  together  into  a  lump  or  bar  of  pure  metal, 
then  heated  again  and  cooled  suddenly, — exposed 
in  this  way  in  quick  succession  to  the  most  rapid 
and  intense  changes  of  temperature,  and  ham- 
mered furiously  while  these  terrible  processes  are 
going  on.  "  Why  cannot  I  be  left  in  peace,"  it  might 
say,  "in  my  condition  as  ore  ?  I  am  contented  with 
that  form  of  life."  Yet  it  is  only  by  such  processes 
that  it  can  be  promoted  in  quality  from  the  slug- 
gish state  of  raw  metal,  compounded  with  alloy, 
to  steel.  And  if  it  could  be  conscious,  after  it  be- 
came steel,  it  would  say:  "Now  I  see  the  reason 
for  these  mines,  with  pickaxes,  and  transportations. 


Distribution  of  Sorrows,  157 

and  great  furnaces,  and  blasts  of  air  to  heat  the 
coals  white,  and  those  baptisms  of  cold,  those 
solid  anvils,  and  frightful  hammers.  They  were 
all  beneficent.  The  frost  and  fire,  the  beatings 
and  pain,  are  represented  in  the  hardness  and  the 
edge,  the  gleam  and  the  capacity,  of  my  nature 
now.  This  nature  I  shall  keep  as  long  as  I  exist, 
and  those  hardships  were  only  the  processes  of 
ascension  into  a  condition  infinitely  superior  to 
what,  in  the  nature  of  things,  I  could  have  known 
in  an  undisturbed  and  contented  lot." 

And  this  analogy,  we  say,  can  be  used  in  the 
moral  region.  Finite  natures  can  be  created,  we 
may  say,  only  as  ore ;  to  be  promoted  they 
must  have  difficulties.  Hardships  which  they 
would  never  choose  must  be  inflicted  on  them,  or 
made  necessary,  as  a  portion  of  discipline.  The 
great  thing  in  education  we  may  afiirm  is  not  to 
have  so  many  facts  told  to  a  person  and  brought 
to  his  knowledge,  but  to  get  mental  power;  and 
therefore  truth  is  made  difficult  of  access,  though 
attainable  by  intellectual  toil.  Energy,  courage, 
persistence,  valor  of  will,  are  better  than  the  most 
luxurious  enjoyment  that  can  be  showered  upon  a 
being;  and  these  can  be  brought  out  only  by 
conflict  of  some  kind,  as  a  muscle  becomes 
tough  and  potent  only  by  lifting,  wrenching, 
blows,  and  toil.  And  therefore  we  are  put  under 
the  lash  of  hunger,  thirst,  and  cold.  To  be  be- 
friended by  Nature  in  all  things  would  make  a 
finite  spirit  immeasurably  less  noble  than  to  gain 


158  Distribution  of  Sorrows. 

control  of  Nature  ;  and  so  we  are  set  amid  forces 
that  are  rude  and  rebellious,  that  we  may  gain 
the  glory  which  comes  from  breaking  and  bridling 
them.  Faith,  and  trust,  and  the  pledging  of  our- 
selves to  the  Infinite  will  and  love,  are  qualities 
that  cannot  be  created  in  us  by  the  Almighty  as 
natural  forces  of  our  inward  constitution;  they 
are  the  results  of  spiritual  powers  set  in  opposi- 
tion to  hardship,  perplexity,  sorrow,  and  the  sight 
of  things  seeming  to  drift  wrong  in  the  world  of 
circumstances  for  a  season.  If  they  are  worth 
anything  as  qualities,  they  imply  the  necessity  of 
such  conditions,  just  as  the  rainbow  implies  the 
background  of  cloud  and  shower.  Physical  pain, 
too,  we  may  say,  is  an  indispensable  possibility  if 
spirit  is  to  be  put  to  discipline  in  connection  with 
matter ;  and  if  a  free  spirit,  or  a  soul  to  be  edu- 
cated to  freedom,  and  to  be  educated,  also,  as 
part  of  a  great  social  organism,  is  put  in  connec- 
tion with  matter,  the  manifold  forms  of  pain  and 
disease  cannot  be  directly  prevented  by  the  Al- 
mighty without  breaking  up  the  whole  structure 
of  education  and  discipline.  And  as  to  the  intru- 
sion of  death  into  the  world,  we  may  say  that,  in 
the  broad  view  of  it,  it  is  a  sign  of  beneficence 
more  than  malignity,  for  it  is  the  condition  of 
life  to  myriads.  If  generations  did  not  pass  from 
the  earth,  it  would  soon  be  crowded,  and  the  new 
tides  of  conscious  life  could  not  roll  in  to  take  its 
possibilities  of  training  and  enjoyment. 

Such  is  the  general  theory  which  can  be  set 


Distribution  of  Sorrows.  159 

over  against  the  general  impeachment  of  order 
and  providence,  based  on  the  existence  of  hard- 
ship and  triaL  I  do  not  pretend  to  say  that,  at 
all  points,  it  is  intellectually  satisfactory.  I  do 
not  pretend  to  say  that  I  could  support  it  logi- 
cally along  its  whole  outline.  I  do  not  believe 
that  there  is  an  intellect  on  the  globe  competent 
to  do  that.  There  can  be  hardly  anything  more 
repulsive  in  the  intellectual  region  than  the  claim 
of  ability  to  solve  perfectly  the  mystery  of  the 
appearance  and  permission  of  hardships  and 
suffering.  But  I  believe  it  may  be  fairly  said 
that  the  theory  we  have  stated  accounts  for  as 
many  or  even  more  facts  than  does  the  theory 
which  impeaches  Providence.  And  if  we  can  be 
made  to  broaden  our  view  beyond  the  limits  ol 
this  half-physical  life,  and  take  an  unending  ex- 
istence into  the  account,  we  shall  find  more  and 
more  light  thrown  upon  sorrow  by  the  theory  that 
the  world  is  made  to  develop  great  qualities  of 
the  intellectual  and  spiritual  order,  and  that  all 
troubles  and  sufferings  are  accounted  for  and  vin- 
dicated which  have  visibly  been  the  means  and 
the  condition  of  producing  mental  power,  and 
moral  or  spiritual  force,  which  ennoble  forever 
the  spirit  in  whom  they  are  evoked.  We  can 
then  intelligently  say,  "  Whom  the  Lord  loveth  he 
chasteneth." 

We  come  to  the  more  difficult  question  when 
we  begin  to  ask  about  the  distribution  of  suffer- 
ing.    A  great  many  people  may  say.  We  are  quite 


i6o  Distribution  of  Sorrows, 

ready  to  grant  the  cogency  of  such  a  theory  of  the 
uses  of  hardship,  when  set  against  a  theory  that 
wonders  why  the  world  is  not  an  Eden,  and  why 
all  the  good  that  we  can  dream  of  does  not  ripen 
for  us,  and  come  to  us  almost  without  bidding. 
If  people  were  treated  essentially  ahke,  they  will 
say,  we  should  be  content  with  the  answer,  we 
should  say  that  it  throws  an  inspiring  light  on  life 
and  its  relations  to  the  future. 

But,  they  urge,  people  are  not  treated  alike. 
The  moment  we  turn  from  the  formula  of  suffer- 
ing to  the  facts  of  suffering,  the  moment  we  turn 
our  eyes  from  the  theory  of  the  Divine  beneficence 
in  the  permission  of  hardship  to  the  manner  in 
which  hardships  are  apportioned  in  this  world,  we 
find  a  problem  unspeakably  complicated.  The 
mystery  grows  darker.  The  theory  serves  to 
throw  a  heavier  shadow,  of  itself,  when  taken  in 
connection  with  the  real  life  of  men  and  women 
on  the  globe.  If  this  world  is  for  the  training  of 
character  by  hardship,  if  hardship  is  essential 
for  its  production,  if  the  Creator  estimates  quali- 
ties which  can  only  be  obtained  by  resistance 
and  struggle  as  the  very  highest  ends  of  his 
providence,  why  are  burdens  so  unequally  ap- 
portioned ?  Why  are  some  thrown  from  birth 
into  conditions  that  bring  comparatively  very  lit- 
tle trial  ?  Why  are  the  noble  faculties  of  others 
so  oppressed  by  the  weight  heaped  upon  them 
that  they  have  scarcely  a  possibility  of  developing 
even  a  feeble  vitality  ?     Why  are  some  ordained 


Distribtitio7t  of  Sorrows.  i6i 

to  breathe  an  atmosphere  of  pollution  from  their 
infancy?  Why  are  whole  races  placed  in  circum- 
stances a  thousand  times  more  favorable  to  the 
growth  of  admirable  character  than  other  races 
enjoy?  When  we  come  to  particulars,  it  may 
be  said,  when  you  take  the  various  strata  and 
circles  and  varieties  of  individual  lot  within  such 
a  city  as  this  into  account,  it  does  not  seem  as 
though  human  life  can  be  set  under  any  one 
theory  that  takes  up  and  accounts  for  the  prob- 
lem of  suffering  and  evil  in  the  light  of  a  wise 
Providence,  certainly  not  in  the  light  of  the 
theory  which  makes  these  sorrows  an  intelligent 
scheme  for  the  development  of  spiritual  good. 

And  I  at  once  confess  that,  in  my  view,  many 
of  the  aspects  of  life,  under  this  head  of  the 
problem,  are  insoluble.  I  do  not  believe  that 
the  theory  has  ever  been  thought  out,  or  that  the 
intellect  has  ever  lived,  which  has  thrown  out  or 
could  give  an  explanation  of  the  apportionment 
of  sufferings  that  can  stand  the  cross-questioning 
of  an  honest  and  thoughtful  mind,  determined  to 
sift  the  question  thoroughly.  No  man  and  no 
theory  can  satisfactorily  tell  us  why  an  impartial 
God  permits  nations,  ages  of  the  world,  whole 
districts  of  cities,  different  families  of  a  near 
neighborhood,  to  be  separated  so  widely  by  the 
amount  they  experience  of  the  privileges  of  life ; 
why  a  holy  God  allows  thousands  and  millions  to 
grow  up  in  an  air  that  must  be  fatal  to  purity; 
why  a  just  God  can  see  myriads  born  and  reared 


1 62  Distribution  of  Sorrows, 

under  the  shadow  of  the  most  terrible  injustice, 
from  which  other  myriads  are  free  ;  why  a  sym- 
pathetic God  can  look  with  equanimity  upon  the 
pangs,  the  wretchedness,  and  the  woe  that,  from 
no  personal  fault,  sting  and  crush  millions  and 
tens  of  millions  of  natures  here,  and  that  would 
seem  to  make  the  music  of  the  earth,  as  it  rolls 
in  its  orbit,  one  vast  inarticulate  murmur  of 
anguish.  The  man  must  be  shallow  in  mind  or 
cold  in  heart,  he  must  be  sadly  deficient  in  hu- 
mility or  in  sensibility,  who  will  maintain  that  the 
actual  apportionment  of  suffering  can  be  as  easily 
explained  as  the  theoretical  value  and  beneficence 
of  suffering,  if  it  were  equally  distributed,  can  be 
justified. 

I  do  not  mean  by  this,  either,  that  we  are 
driven  to  scepticism  by  the  phenomena  of  the 
moral  world.  A  sceptical  theory  of  no  Provi- 
dence, or  of  a  God  that  is  capricious  or  indifferent 
to  human  welfare,  finds  as  many  facts,  certainly, 
opposed  to  it,  as  the  more  cheering  scheme  has 
to  meet.  What  I  affirm  is  that  no  theory  sets  all 
the  facts  in  order.  Faith  must  be  an  act  of  con- 
fidence, not  a  demonstration.  It  must  be  the 
choice  of  one  side  over  another,  where  neither 
side  can  make  a  clear  case  to  the  understanding. 
Faith  must  be  the  acceptance  of  the  nobler  side, 
and  the  grounding  of  the  life  upon  it,  just  as 
practical  unbelief  and  the  refusal  of  worship  must 
be  the  choice  of  the  darker  side,  and  the  ground- 
ing of  life  upon  that. 


Distribution  of  Sorrows,  163 

But  although  no  intellect  is  competent  to  con- 
struct a  theory  which  will  fully  explain  the  un- 
equal distribution  of  hardship  and  suffering,  there 
are  one  or  two  things  to  be  said  which,  I  think, 
do  throw  light  upon  some  portions  of  that  prob- 
lem. It  is  by  taking  a  longer  time  into  account, 
by  making  the  conception  of  eternity  a  vital 
element  in  the  question,  by  putting  this  life  and  a 
future  life  into  as  close  connection  as  a  course  of 
training  in  a  university  and  the  career  in  active 
pursuit  that  is  to  follow,  that  we  obtain  our 
clearest  light  upon  the  purpose  of  hardship  when 
the  general  problem  is  before  the  mind  for  treat- 
ment. 

Now,  when  the  question  is  stated  to  me,  or  pro- 
poses itself  to  my  own  thought,  thus  :  Here  is  a 
person  who  has  no  hardships  of  lot  to  encounter, 
no  difficulties  to  wrestle  with  —  everything  in  life 
goes  as  smoothly  as  floating  down  stream  —  how 
do  you  bring  such  an  experience  into  harmony, 
under  the  same  system,  with  the  lot  of  another 
person  or  family,  upon  whom  troubles  are  poured 
like  hail,  whose  sky  has  more  thunder  in  it  than 
light  and  cheer,  to  whom  the  revelation  of  God 
is  indeed  in  the  picture  of  the  Psalm,  *'  Clouds 
and  darkness  are  round  about  thee  "  ?  —  I  say 
in  answer,  this  :  The  crisis-season  probably,  in  the 
history  of  the  person  with  the  easy  lot,  has  not 
come.  But,  it  may  be  said,  it  does  not  come  even 
up  to  the  hour  of  death.  Then,  I  answer,  it  will 
come  in  the  future  life.     I  believe  that,  as  to  the 


164  Distribution  of  Sorrows, 

experience  of  hardship  in  relation  to  the  conse- 
cration of  the  will,  there  is  to  be  no  possible 
escape  by  any  finite  and  free  creature  of  God. 

If  the  broad  principle  be  true  that  we  were 
made  for  the  awakening  and  training  of  the 
noblest  affections,  and  for  the  dedication  of  the 
will,  we  must  all  be  involved  in  clouds  enough, 
be  pressed  by  burdens  heavy  enough,  be  sub- 
mitted to  severities  of  condition  enough,  to  fur- 
nish the  will  with  the  opportunity  of  making  a 
controlling  choice  of  something  higher  than  it 
clearly  sees,  and  of  conjoining  itself  deliberately 
to  God  ;  thus  receiving  his  life  into  the  central 
artery  of  our  spiritual  nature.  Jesus  did  this  in 
Gethsemane.  The  cup  seemed  very  bitter ;  the 
cloud  passed  over  the  face  of  Infinite  Love.  His 
heart  was  rent.  He  said,  Let  this  experience  be 
kept  from  me,  —  "  Nevertheless,  not  as  I  will,  but 
as  thou  wilt."  He  acknowledged  the  Highest 
Law  then.  He  was  made  perfect,  his  will  was 
perfectly  united  with  the  Divine  through  suffering. 
He  was  then  a  perfectly  free  being  in  the  universe, 
completely  united  with  the  Infinite  Love,  —  the 
Perfect  Son. 

And  thus  the  saying  is  true,  "  He  scourgeth 
every  son  whom  he  receiveth."  Not  for  the  sake 
of  the  scourging,  not  by  arbitrary  determination, 
but  because  the  finite  spirit  cannot  flower  out  into 
its  richest  capacity,  its  consummate  excellence, 
its  possibility  of  noble,  sweet,  perpetual  joy,  until, 
under  the  pressure  of  some  sort  of  calamity  or 


Distribution  of  Sorrows.  165 

hardship,  it  makes  the  conscious  homage  to  an 
Infinite  excellence,  and  submits  itself  to  the  dis- 
posal of  a  Sovereign  mind  and  mercy. 

Some  persons  do  this  in  the  experience  of  many 
of  the  countless  forms  in  which  trial  visits  us  in 
this  world.  Loss  of  property  is  the  condition 
in  which  not  a  few  find  it.  Desertion  by  friends 
is  the  shock  that  drives  others  to  it.  Sickness  is 
the  seclusion  in  which  still  others  wake  to  a  sense 
of  their  relation  to  the  source  of  life.  An  experi- 
ence of  the  evil  hidden  in  one's  nature  is  the 
spur  that  incites  another  class.  Contemplation 
of  the  woes  that  afflict  the  race  as  a  whole  shows 
to  others  their  need  of  faith  in  an  Infinite  justice 
and  compassion  on  whose  purposes  their  hearts 
can  lean.  The  loss  of  kindred  and  friends  is  the 
condition  of  its  attainment  by  thousands  more. 
But  all  these  fail,  with  multitudes,  to  induce  such 
consecration.  They  are  postponing  the  acquisi- 
tion of  the  purpose  of  their  creation.  And  where 
persons  do  not  experience  any  of  these  or  similar 
hardships,  their  trials  are  simply  reserved  for  a 
future  stage  of  their  existence.  It  may  be  that 
they  will  not  come  in  such  forms  as  they  assume 
in  this  world ;  but  the  only  theory  which  throws 
any  noble  meaning  on  this  world  bids  us  believe 
that  they  are  yet  to  come  in  some  form  powerful 
enough  to  waken  the  whole  nature,  and  lift  it  by 
a  decisive  choice  into  a  dedicated  state. 

There  is  this  difference  between  mental  and 
moral  training  or  education.     The  first  consists  in 


1 66  Distribution  of  Sorrows, 

gaining  knowledge ;  the  second  in  attaining  a 
certain  state  of  will.  Power  is  the  all-essential 
object  in  the  first  case  ;  submission  and  allegiance 
in  the  other,  —  allegiance  that  flows  from  choice, 
and  the  comprehensive  feeling  that  there  is 
no  other  life  which  is  worthy  or  desirable,  and  no 
other  method  of  attaching  our  nature  to  the  cur- 
rents of  the  Infinite  life.  A  person  with  a  soul 
who  fails  to  be  plunged  into  perplexities  and  hard- 
ships enough  to  press  the  will  heavily  and  give  it 
no  peace  till  it  rises  into  this  highest  state  misses 
the  object  of  his  creation,  just  as  much  as  a  mind 
would  that  should  not  be  aroused  from  a  listless 
and  happy  ignorance  to  be  strained  and  buffeted 
in  the  exercise  of  pursuing  truth.  And  if  the 
circumstances  of  this  life  have  been  too  easy  to 
admit  such  dramatic  antagonism  between  a  life 
self-centred  and  a  life  centred  in  God,  and  drawn 
from  him,  it  is  a  proof  that  the  Sovereign  grace 
has  postponed  the  crisis-trial  of  the  life  thus 
made  so  easy  here  to  the  future  existence. 

The  Church  has  hindered  men  from  taking 
such  a  view  by  its  doctrine  that  this  life  is  a  final 
state  of  probation,  or  that  only  punishment  or  re- 
ward follows  men  into  the  future.  Such  a  hack- 
ing at  the  laws  which  bind  our  whole  life  into 
spiritual  unity  is  fatal  to  any  broad  and  impressive 
conception  of  its  purpose,  and  of  the  relation  to 
each  other  of  the  two  states.  We  must  come  to 
believe  that  countless  spirits  go  into  the  next  life 
to  meet  trials  and  burdens  which  are  not  punish- 


Distribution  of  Sorrows,  167 

ment  or  doom,  but  discipline,  education,  the  prep- 
aration for  life.  We  must  set  that  world,  not  in 
a  sentimental  and  rosy  light,  as  many  Universal- 
ists  do,  —  not  in  a  lurid,  frightful  light,  as  Cal- 
vinists  do,  —  not  separating  it  into  two  latitudes, 
within  one  of  which  all  is  misery,  and  within  the 
other  perfected  and  rather  formal,  if  not  tedious, 
bliss,  —  but  in  the  light  of  the  fact  that  the  vast 
majority  of  people  go  from  this  world  into  it 
with  unkindled  spiritual  powers,  which  are  to 
be  wakened  there  by  the  only  means  competent 
to  fit  a  free  nature  to  become  a  channel  for  the 
Infinite  life.  fWhen  a  soul  says,  "  Thy  will  be 
done,"  and  says  it  from  the  core  of  its  being,  its 
spiritual  education  is  completed  ;  it  passes  up 
then  into  joy.  Until  it  says  this  it  is  not  born 
into  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  its  great  capaci- 
ties of  enjoyment  are  not  opened.  Until  it  has 
experienced  trials  enough  to  make  it  feel  the 
boundless  importance  of  saying  this,  the  goodness 
of  God  has  not  been  perfectly  manifest  towards 
it,  and  is  waiting  to  reveal  itself  in  the  world  to 
comey 

This  view,  brethren,  not  only  puts  this  life  in 
more  vital  and  rational  and  beneficent  connection 
with  the  next,  but  it  teaches  us  how  to  regard 
those  who  are  set  in  opposite  conditions  of  for- 
tune in  this  world.  I  believe  that  essentially 
equal  spiritual  trials  are  to  be  appointed,  in  the 
long  run,  to  all  souls.  For  those  who  are  born 
under  the  very  dominion  of  evil  here,  with  organ- 


1 68  Distribution  of  Sorrows, 

izations  that  determine  to  vice,  and  whose  circum- 
stances are  infinitely  less  favorable  than  some  of 
us  are  circled  with,  I  cannot  but  believe  that 
there  is  to  be  compensation  in  the  world  to  come, 
so  that  they  shall  not  be  able,  in  comparison  with 
any  of  us,  to  impeach  the  Infinite  equity.  But 
when  we  see  a  soul  loaded  with  sorrow,  bowed 
by  poverty,  chained  to  a  sick-room,  flooded  by 
disasters,  robbed  of  friends,  torn  by  disappoint- 
ments, tossed  on  a  sea  of  afflictions  that  do  not, 
of  necessity,  utterly  overwhelm  it,  we  may  say 
here  is  a  spirit,  whom  God  is  now  carrying 
through  the  test-season  of  its  education.  And  if 
the  spirit  is  not  crushed  by  all  that  rolls  against 
it,  if  it  shows  fortitude  in  adversity,  patience  in 
scourging,  serenity  in  sickness,  trust  in  bereave- 
ment, if  it  says,  "I  know  that  God  must  be 
good  in  all  this  ;  I  cannot  see  his  purpose,  but  I 
do  not  doubt  its  beneficence  ;  *  Though  he  slay 
me,  yet  will  I  trust  in  him;'  his  will  be  done," 
we  may  say  here  is  a  triumphant  life  ;  here  is  the 
great  work  accomplished  for  which  a  soul  is 
fashioned  and  made  heir  to  an  eternal  life  ;  here 
is  a  spiritual  state  attained  which  opens  the  whole 
infinite  to  its  possession  and  makes  the  universe 
a  home ;  here  is  the  ore  of  nature  tempered  into 
the  Christian  steel.  And  when  such  a  one  dies, 
the  chimes  sound  in  the  unseen  world  in  welcome 
of  a  soul  for  whom  eternity  has  nothing  but  in- 
finite beauty,  opportunities  of  noble  service,  the 
joy  of  receiving  and  imparting  the  spirit  of  God. 


XI. 

DELIVERANCE  FROM  THE  FEAR  OF  DEATH. 

"  And  deliver  them  who,  through  fear  of  death,  were  all  their 
lifetime  subject  to  bondage."  —  Hebrews  xi.  15. 

THE  passage  in  the  letter  to  the  Hebrews 
with  which  the  verse  just  read  is  connected 
declares  that  a  prominent  purpose  of  the  ministry 
of  Christ  was  to  deliver  men  from  the  bondage 
which  the  dread  of  death,  and  of  all  that  is  asso- 
ciated with  death,  produces.  It  implies,  therefore, 
that  a  deep  and  wise  religious  culture  shows  its 
crowning  blessedness  and  power  by  breaking  that 
fear  in  the  soul ;  by  lifting  the  whole  nature  above 
it ;  by  inspiring  the  mind  and  heart  to  exclaim,  as 
the  highest  passage  in  its  chant  of  triumph  over 
the  world,  "  O  death,  where  is  thy  sting  ?  O  grave, 
where  is  thy  victory  ?  Thanks  be  to  God,  who  giv- 
eth  us  the  victory  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ ! " 
I  am  sure  that  if  we  should  all  of  us  look  into 
our  own  natures  fairly,  or  consult  our  own  expe- 
rience, we  should  say  that  the  greatest  spiritual 
blessing  that  could  be  bestowed  upon  us  would  be 
such  a  set  of  principles  or  such  a  tone  of  feeling 
as  would  deliver  us  completely,  now  and  to  the 


I/O  Distribution  of  Sorrows, 

life  is  to  be  wrought  into  strength.  For  we  may  be 
sure  that  if  we  refuse  our  faith  and  allegiance  now, 
we  must  make  them  in  the  future  under  no  easier 
terms.  God  does  not  lower  the  laws  to  suit  our 
deliberate  weakness. 

And  let  us  remember,  too,  that  until  we  make 
that  consecration,  that  act  of  faith,  all  life  will 
be  a  trial ;  there  will  be  no  perennial  happiness 
distilled  for  us  ;  we  cannot  know  inwardly  the  love 
of  God,  because  we  will  not  graft  our  life  upon  it ; 
we  cannot  be  conscious  of  the  liberty  of  sonship. 

1859. 


XI. 

DELIVERANCE  FEOM  THE  FEAR  OF  DEATH. 

"  And  deliver  them  who,  through  fear  of  death,  were  all  their 
lifetime  subject  to  bondage."  —  Hebrews  xi.  15. 

THE  passage  in  the  letter  to  the  Hebrews 
with  which  the  verse  just  read  is  connected 
declares  that  a  prominent  purpose  of  the  ministry 
of  Christ  was  to  deliver  men  from  the  bondage 
which  the  dread  of  death,  and  of  all  that  is  asso- 
ciated with  death,  produces.  It  implies,  therefore, 
that  a  deep  and  wise  religious  culture  shows  its 
crowning  blessedness  and  power  by  breaking  that 
fear  in  the  soul ;  by  lifting  the  whole  nature  above 
it ;  by  inspiring  the  mind  and  heart  to  exclaim,  as 
the  highest  passage  in  its  chant  of  triumph  over 
the  world,  "  O  death,  where  is  thy  sting  ?  O  grave, 
where  is  thy  victory  ?  Thanks  be  to  God,  who  giv- 
eth  us  the  victory  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ ! " 
I  am  sure  that  if  we  should  all  of  us  look  into 
our  own  natures  fairly,  or  consult  our  own  expe- 
rience, we  should  say  that  the  greatest  spiritual 
blessing  that  could  be  bestowed  upon  us  would  be 
such  a  set  of  principles  or  such  a  tone  of  feeling 
as  would  deliver  us  completely,  now  and  to  the 


1 72    Deliverance  from  the  Fear  of  Death, 

end  of  our  days,  from  all  bondage  of  mind  and  of 
sentiment  to  the  power  of  death.  When  Ave  set 
the  problem  of  death  before  the  mind  in  its 
breadth,  solemnity,  and  gloom,  as  it  has  engaged 
the  thought  and  the  fears  of  the  wisest  of  our  race 
in  every  nation  and  century ;  when  we  think  how 
men  have  recoiled  from  it  as  the  end  of  all  that  is 
pleasant  in  their  knowledge  of  the  beauty  and 
wonder  of  nature,  the  end  visibly  of  the  light,  the 
cheer,  the  music  of  this  palpable  world,  the  end 
of  human  fellowship,  and  the  ministries  of  human 
love  ;  when  we  think  of  it  as  the  vast  black  cur- 
tain dropped  from  the  heavens  across  the  track  of 
every  living  being,  and  closing  up  the  vista  against 
all  the  strainings  and  importunity  of  sense ;  when 
we  think  how  many  myriads  have  passed  to  the 
other  side  of  it,  and  yet  that  we  hear  no  chorus 
from  them  that  they  still  live  and  love  and  worship 
there,  that  no  waves  of  influence  come  to  us  so 
demonstrably  as  to  break  our  scepticism  while  we 
are  at  our  toil,  while  we  are  amid  perplexities  that 
would  be  cleared  away  if  we  could  have  mes- 
sages unmistakable  and  inspiring  from  that  misty 
sphere ;  when  we  think  of  the  terrors  and  quak- 
ings  with  which  human  breasts  have  been  shaken 
by  the  haunting  suspicion  of  the  woes  that  may 
await  them  after  they  shall  have  passed  beyond 
that  drop-scene,  and  consider  to  how  many  mil- 
lions the  assurance  that  there  is  no  future  life 
would  be  unspeakably  welcome,  as  a  relief  from 
the  tortures  of  their  education  or  the  forebodings 


Deliverance  from  the  Fear  of  Death.    1 73 

of  their  guilt,  —  must  we  not  be  convinced  that  the 
view  which  a  man  has  of  death,  and  of  all  related 
to  it,  is  the  exhibition  and  efflorescence  of  all  his 
religious  faith  and  principles  ?  Must  we  not  see 
that  the  man  who  can  face  that  question  calmly, 
the  man  who  can  say  from  the  level  of  his  religious 
character,  "I  am  not  afraid  to  die;  I  am  not 
afraid  of  anything  that  lurks  behind  that  solemn 
screen ;  I  detect  the  strugglings  through  it  of  an 
intenser  light  than  is  around  us  here ;  I  believe 
that  everything  which  makes  this  world  a  privilege 
is  offered  still  more  largely  to  my  essential  nature 
when  I  pass  into  the  region  which  the  grave 
hides ;  I  feel  no  shadow  and  no  dread  cast  upon 
my  work,  darkening  my  home,  or  creeping  into 
my  heart,  at  the  thought  of  death,  because  I  be- 
lieve that  God  has  a  still  higher  good  in  store  for 
me,  and  mine,  and  all  humanity,  in  the  sphere 
beyond  the  grave," — must  we  not  acknowledge 
that  such  a  man  has  attained  the  highest  victory 
in  thought  and  feeling  which  Christian  faith  can 
give,  that  his  calmness,  his  trust,  his  deliverance 
from  all  the  bondage  which  the  certainty  and  the 
problem  of  death  have  ever  wrought  upon  human- 
ity, are  the  clear  and  sufficient  tests  that  the  very 
noblest  elements  of  Christian  faith  have  ripened 
in  his  nature  ?  Has  he  not  fulfilled  in  his  expe- 
rience the  promise  of  Christ,  "  Verily,  verily,  I  say 
unto  you,  he  that  heareth  my  word,  and  believeth 
on  him  that  sent  me,  hath  everlasting  life,  and 
shall  not  come  into  condemnation ;  but  is  passed 
from  death  unto  life  "  ? 


1 74    Deliverance  from  the  Fear  of  Death. 

But  now  let  us  attend  more  particularly,  and  in 
order,  to  the  bondage  we  suffer  from  the  fear  of 
death,  and  to  the  sources  of  deliverance  from  it. 

With  a  great  many  persons  a  prominent  ele- 
ment of  this  thraldom  is  the  fear  of  dying.  A 
large  number  of  persons,  faithful  persons,  per- 
sons who  are  in  a  state  of  heart  which  frees  them 
from  much  of  the  spiritual  fear  of  death,  suffer 
greatly  from  constitutional  recoil  at  what  may  be 
the  pain,  or  the  mental  terrors,  or  the  anguish  of 
the  most  sacred  affections,  in  the  dissolution  of  the 
spirit  from  the  body,  and  the  separation  from 
those  we  love  and  must  leave. 

Now,  in  the  region  of  the  highest  truth  there  is 
provision  by  Infinite  goodness  against  every  con- 
stituent element  of  the  fear  of  death ;  and  cer- 
tainly God  calls  us  to  see  now,  through  abundant 
testimony  of  experience  and  of  science,  that  this 
form  of  dread  is  gratuitous,  and  that  it  rests  on 
delusion.  Those  that  are  well  suffer  vastly  more 
from  the  thought  of  dying  than  the  sick  do  from 
the  experience  of  it.  When  the  time  comes  there 
is  not  much  dread  of  yielding  the  bodily  life. 
It  is  natural  to  die,  as  it  is  natural  to  yield  up 
our  consciousness  for  rest  and  refreshment.  It  is 
probable  that  the  proportion  of  those  who  suffer 
in  the  late  stages  of  disease  from  the  fear  of 
breathing  out  their  mortal  vitality  is  far  less  than 
the  number  of  those  who  suffer  through  nervous- 
ness from  the  inability  to  sink  pleasantly  into 
nightly  sleep. 


Deliverance  from  the  Fear  of  Death,     175 

There  is  scarcely  any  department  of  human 
experience  to  which  scientific  scrutiny  has  been 
directed  during  the  last  century,  which  has  yielded 
such  novel  and  striking  illustrations  of  the  benefi- 
cence of  God,  as  the  distribution  and  the  economy 
of  pain.  It  reveals  his  truth,  it  reveals  his  jus- 
tice, it  publishes  the  severity  of  his  laws,  and  the 
vast  value  he  sets  upon  the  living  in  accordance 
with  his  statutes,  physical  as  well  as  moral ;  but 
it  publishes,  also,  his  beneficence.  For  the  great 
principle  has  been  established,  that,  when  pain 
can  no  longer  serve  as  a  guard,  a  monitor,  and  a 
warning,  it  is  taken  away.  And  in  accordance 
with  the  principle  we  find  that  the  dread  of  dying 
melts,  when  it  can  no  longer  serve  as  a  protection 
to  our  life,  when  the  vital  power  is  hopelessly 
smitten.  A  distinguished  physician  and  physiolo- 
gist of  England  has  recently  borne  testimony 
that,  in  the  range  of  his  large  experience,  he  has 
known  but  two  cases  where  there  was  manifest 
dread  of  dying  in  the  experience  of  dissolution 
itself;  and  these  were  persons  who  had  no  long 
experience  of  sickness,  but  were  snatched  away 
quite  suddenly  by  the  effects  of  accident,  when  in 
full  health. 

I  am  quite  sure  that  the  testimony  of  clergy- 
men will  point  in  the  same  direction.  It  is  very 
rarely,  I  am  convinced,  that  the  will  does  not 
yield,  when  it  becomes  a  settled  certainty  that 
the  bodily  life  must  ebb  away,  even  though  in 
the  earlier  stages  of  disease  there  may  have  been 


176   Delivera7ice  from  the  Fear  of  Death, 

anxious,  painful,  or  rebellious  recoil  from  the 
thought  of  death.  And  then  clergymen  can  bear 
abundant  testimony  to  the  strange  fact  that  the 
affections,  also,  are  calm  in  the  last  hours.  Even 
when  they  are  most  refined,  and  are  complicated 
widely  and  delicately  with  earthly  love,  it  is  very 
strange  how  serenely  they  unclasp  from  their  ob- 
jects, with  what  sweetness  and  resignation  they 
learn  to  say  "  farewell,"  and  how,  when  all  around 
the  bedside  are  penetrated  with  the  grief  that 
wrings  from  the  very  soul  the  bitterest  tears,  they 
can  give  up  all  that  has  been  most  delightful 
in  earthly  companionship  with  unmoistened  eyes 
and  with  faltering  tones  of  courage  and  conso- 
lation. 

The  pain  of  dying,  too,  has  been  exaggerated. 
By  the  testimony  of  the  wisest  physicians  there  is 
no  place  in  human  language  for  that  phrase, 
"the  last  mortal  agony."  The  vast  majority  of 
the  children  of  God  breathe  out  their  life  with 
entire  unconsciousness  of  suffering.  The  angel  of 
death  hovers  over  the  mortal  couch  as  a  friend ; 
and  in  almost  every  death-chamber  the  words  of 
David  may  be  read  as  an  interpretation  of  the 
last  experience  which  the  spirit  has  of  its  partner- 
ship with  flesh, — "  He  giveth  his  beloved  sleep." 

O  earth,  so  full  of  dreary  noises ! 
O  men,  with  wailing  in  your  voices  I 
O  delved  gold,  the  wallers  heap ! 
O  strife,  O  curse,  that  o'er  it  fall ! 
God  makes  a  silence  through  you  alV 
And  "  giveth  his  beloved  sleep." 


Deliverance  from  the  Fear  of  Death,     177 

We  may  say,  as  a  general  truth,  therefore,  that 
we  are  disturbed  by  illusions,  if  we  are  in  bond- 
age from  the  fear  of  dying  as  a  physical  experi- 
ence, or  from  dread  of  the  distresses  which  the 
finer  sensibilities  and  affections  may  suffer  in  the 
last  hours  or  days.  There  is  so  little  of  such 
distress,  so  unfrequently  any  expression  of  recoil 
from  the  fact  of  dying,  or  of  unwillingness  to  die, 
when  the  time  draws  near,  such  a  general  acqui- 
escence in  the  call  to  pass  away  from  the  outward 
life,  to  give  up  property,  to  leave  home  and  friends, 
to  leave  behind  all  the  strifes  of  the  market 
and  the  street,  to  say,  "I  am  ready  now  to  rest 
and  to  await  what  God  may  have  in  store,"  that 
it  is  impossible  to  tell,  from  the  experience  of  the 
last  hours,  how  deep  the  consecration  of  the  soul 
has  been,  or  what  is  its  inmost  religious  state. 
We  are  delivered  in  a  great  measure,  then,  from 
fear  by  natural  laws  expressing  the  goodness  of 
God  that  play  within  the  constitution  of  our 
being. 

The  real  deliverance  from  the  bondage  of 
death,  the  only  one  which  will  test  the  relig- 
iousness of  our  thought  and  the  consecration  of 
our  will,  must  be  wrought  out  while  we  are  in 
health.  It  lies  in  the  thorough  comprehension 
by  the  mind  of  all  the  doubts  and  all  the  terrors 
that  can  be  associated  with  death,  and  the  disper- 
sion of  them  by  principles  which  the  mind  holds 
with  a  conviction  which  grows  with  its  growth 
and  strengthens  with  its  strength. 

8*  L 


178    Deliverance  from  the  Fear  of  Death, 

And  in  this  connection  we  must  speak  first  of 
the  dread  of  death  as  the  cessation  of  our  being. 
The  religious  sentiment  and  the  Christian  meet 
this  fear  by  the  principle  that  our  life  does  not 
and  cannot  cease  here ;  that  this  existence  is  but 
the  threshold  of  our  experience.  But  in  order  to 
conquer  death  in  our  imagination  and  our  feeling 
we  must  take  this  principle  into  the  very  substance 
of  our  thought  and  of  our  nature.  The  senses  are 
the  great  enemy  of  the  doctrine  of  immortality. 
It  is  only  by  serious  discipline  that  we  can  con- 
quer their  opposition  to  it,  and  make  it  a  central 
and  illuminating,  a  controlling  principle  in  our 
life.  We  must  train  ourselves  to  feel  that  the 
soul  is  really  the  substantial  thing  ;  that  the  body 
exists  for  the  soul,  and  not  the  soul  for  the  frame. 
We  must  rise  into  the  custom  of  perceiving  that, 
by  the  testimony  of  our  own  consciousness,  the 
moral  forces  within  us  are  the  deepest  and  com- 
manding ones.  We  must  bring  ourselves  up  to  a 
steady  perception  of  the  fact  that  all  experience 
which  tests,  which  educates,  and  which  increases 
moral  and  spiritual  forces  in  us,  is  the  most  valu- 
able experience  which  men  ever  get ;  so  that  none 
of  us  would  think  of  denying  that  poverty  and 
hardship  and  pain  had  proved  noble  blessings  for 
a  man  if  they  made  him  more  virtuous,  more  rev- 
erent, purer  in  heart,  and  stronger  in  will.  We 
must  protect  ourselves  against  estimating  the 
importance  and  the  worth  of  life  by  anything 
outward,  anything  like  sensuous  enjoyment,  repu- 


Deliverance  from  the  Fear  of  Death.    179 

tation,  worldly  place  or  scale  of  living,  and  must 
make  our  standard  of  it  moral  and  inward,  the 
exercise  of  religious  loyalty,  charity,  acquaintance 
with  God  through  all  the  publications  of  His  life 
and  by  all  our  faculties,  and  then  we  shall  be  in 
the  condition  to  know  how  immortality  can  seem 
the  natural  truth  in  relation  to  our  spirits,  and  how 
this  existence  can  be  and  is  only  the  scaffolding 
for  building  up  the  outer  walls  of  our  nature. 

We  cannot  get  such  a  belief  in  immortality  as 
will  deliver  us  from  the  bondage  of  death  until 
we  can  see  that  the  next  life,  if  it  be  true  at  all, 
according  to  the  Christian  inteipretation  of  it, 
must  be  in  the  proper  sense  more  substantial 
than  this ;  and  more  substantial  because  it  will 
call  into  play  more  steadily  those  powers  of  our 
humanity  which  are  the  only  substantial  things  in 
us  here, — the  mind,  which  takes  up  no  room,  and 
which  may  grow  indefinitely  without  any  increase 
of  the  bodily  organization ;  the  heart,  which  does 
not  draw  from  any  material  source  in  growing 
more  self-sacrificing  and  affectionate  ;  the  taste 
for  pure  beauty,  which  feeds  itself  year  after  year 
on  the  wonders  and  charms  of  God's  works,  and 
grows  year  after  year  by  what  it  feeds  on,  and  yet 
takes  nothing  from  outward  nature  and  gives  no 
material  sign  of  its  own  increase ;  and  the  relig- 
ious sensibilities,  which  feel  after  God  and  com- 
mune with  him,  and  imbibe  the  deepest  joy  from 
such  communion,  and  yet  are  unseen  and  feed 
themselves  from  unseen  springs. 


1 80   Deliveraiice  from  the  Fear  of  Death. 

Ah,  my  friends,  so  long  as  you  believe  that  the 
body  is  the  substantial  side  of  j^our  humanity  be- 
cause you  have  sensible  experience  of  it,  and  that 
the  solid  world  is  the  chief  reality  outside  of  you 
because  it  resists  your  touch  and  is  lighted  to  your 
eye  ;  so  long  as  you  fail  to  perceive  that  intellect 
is  an  unspeakably  higher  and  more  real  thing  than 
your  array  of  muscles,  that  the  law  of  duty  is  of 
a  higher  grade  of  substance  and  value  than  your 
blood,  that  virtue  and  the  power  of  knowing  God 
are  more  essential  portions  of  your  personality 
than  your  arteries  and  your  nerves,  and  are  nobler 
than  your  intellect  besides,  and  that,  outside  of 
you,  the  wisdom  of  God,  the  glory  of  God,  the 
goodness  and  sustaining  power  of  God,  which 
alone  give  this  world  and  the  universe  meaning 
and  majesty  and  beauty  to  your  mind,  are  unut- 
terably higher  and  more  real  things  than  the 
layers  of  rock  beneath  you,  and  the  deeps  of  air 
above,  and  that  the  Spirit  of  God  is  vaster  and 
more  substantial  than  all  the  height  and  compass 
of  this  creation,  which  was  called  into  visible 
being  by  his  breath,  —  you  are  not  in  the  condi- 
tion to  feel  yet  the  victorious  faith  in  immortality! 
You  are  weighed  down  by  matter,  and  must  move 
along  to  the  other  and  the  spiritual  pole  of  the 
scale  of  thought.  When  you  once  get  there,  and 
see  that  this  world  exists  for  what  is  best  in  you, 
and  that  everything  lovely  and  grand  in  nature  is 
the  quickening  and  the  food  for  something  noble 
and  moral  in  you,  and  that  it  is  a  spiritual  consti- 


Deliverattce  from  the  Fear  of  Death,    1 8 1 

tution  which  God  has  housed  in  your  body,  to  be 
educated  here,  then  you  grasp  the  principle  that 
dissipates  death  from  your  thoughts,  and  that  Kfts 
you  into  seeing  that  the  next  life,  instead  of  being 
a  pleasant  fancy  or  an  empty  sphere  of  ghosts, 
may  be  more  substantial  than  this,  though  invisi- 
ble now,  by  appealing  directly,  without  the  me- 
dium of  the  body  and  without  the  interruption  of 
bodily  cares  and  aeeds,  to  our  power  of  learning 
truth,  to  our  capacity  of  enjoying  Divine  beauty, 
to  our  moral  faculty  and  capability  of  excellence 
and  power  of  service,  to  all  the  faculties  through 
which  we  know  God  and  by  which  we  are  his 
children.  It  is  thus,  brethren,  that  we  must 
vitalize  and  inflame  the  idea  of  immortality  into 
victory  over  our  senses  and  their  scepticism,  and 
over  the  bondage  of  the  fear  that  the  death  of  the 
body  is  the  quenching  of  our  life. 

And  now  I  must  speak  of  the  bondage  created 
by  the  fear  of  what  may  come  after  death.  There 
are  very  few  persons,  comparatively,  w^ho  take  and 
keep  a  spiritual  view  of  the  universe  and  of  hu- 
man life,  such  as  we  have  just  unfolded,  and  thus 
gain  an  intelligent  victory  over  death  as  the  foe 
of  their  conscious  being.  But  there  are  a  great 
many  who  have  a  lurking  and  phantom  faith  in 
immortality,  and  are  kept  by  it  in  dread,  from  fear 
of  terrors  which  may  hide  there,  and  with  which 
the  laws  of  God  are  armed.  This  is  the  super- 
stitious servitude  in  the  fear  of  death.  Unwhole- 
some or  unripe  religion  has  fostered  it  for  centu- 


1 82    Deliverance  from  the  Fear  of  Death, 

ries.  True  Christianity  tries  to  conquer  this  by- 
inspiring  us  with  coi;ifidence  in  the  justice  of  the 
Almighty. 

For  one,  brethren,  I  believe  most  seriously  that 
death  is  a  crisis  in  our  spiritual  history.  I  be- 
lieve that  it  is  an  important  and  tremendous  crisis. 
Unrobing  the  spirit  of  the  flesh;  lifting  it  out 
from  connection  with  the  world  in  which  it  may 
have  taken  ignoble  and  unholy  pleasure;  striking 
away  from  it  the  cushion  of  its  sloth,  the  banquets 
of  its  transitory  delight,  the  channels  of  its  vice, 
the  pleasant  draperies  with  which  it  has  curtained 
itself  against  the  calls  of  duty;  setting  it  face  to 
face  with  the  splendors  of  truth,  for  which  its 
untrained  eye  is  weak,  before  the  blaze  of  holy  real- 
ities, and  within  the  grasp  of  laws  whose  majesty 
it  has  slighted,  but  which  it  sees  now  in  all  their 
severity  and  grandeur ;  unloosing  it,  a  weak  and 
faithless  spirit,  it  may  be,  in  a  spiritual  world  the 
alphabet  of  whose  language  it  refused,  perhaps, 
to  learn  in  the  flesh, — I  dare  not  tell  you  that  I 
think  this  will  be  anything  less  than  a  mighty  and 
tremendous  crisis  for  you  and  for  me.  All  easy 
and  volatile  raptures  about  passing  from  this  world 
into  the  next,  as  though  then  all  care  is  over  and 
peace  is  sure,  sound  to  me  not  only  weak  but 
repulsive. 

And  yet  no  emotion  of  fellowship  can  I  ever 
feel  with  a  faith  that  stimulates  or  allows  any  fear 
of  Infinite  justice  in  the  world  to  come.  Essen- 
tially that  is. blasphemy.     Do  not  believe  that  any 


Deliverance  from  tM^Feftf;  of  De4^^  183^'  / 

force  or  quality  of  the  Infinitl^5^eing<^^^e  your'j> 
foe.  Any  scheme  of  religious  thou^^^wlriey  idls 
us  that  we  have  the  opportunity  here,  tt^f^a^gn-^iia^ 
partial  goodness  of  God,  to  escape  his  justteean^"^. 
the  world  to  come,  though  many  of  the  best  meo'^ 
on  this  earth  have  taught  it  and  seemed  to  believe 
it,  is  a  dreadful  form  of  paganism.  Our  only  hope 
here  or  anywhere  is  in  the  justice  of  God.  In  its 
severity,  in  its  tenacity,  in  the  terrors  with  which 
it  faces  your  guilt,  in  the  tones  with  which,  through 
your  conscience,  it  shakes  your  soul,  it  is  still  a 
form  of  the  Infinite  Love.  When  you  are  in  sick- 
ness, do  you  dread  the  medicine  that  alone  can 
search  the  hidings  of  your  disease  as  though  it  were 
your  foe?  Do  you  recoil  from  the  physician,  and 
call  him  your  enemy,  because  he  will  not  talk 
smooth  words  to  you,  but  tells  you  of  your  vio- 
lation of  the  laws  of  your  constitution,  and  warns 
you  if  you  do  not  turn  and  obey  them?  O  my 
friend,  see  that  Infinite  justice  is  your  medicine  ! 
If  your  mind  is  dark  by  the  absence  of  knowledge, 
and  God  brings  his  truth  near  to  you,  and  keeps 
it  there,  and  tries  to  educate  you  through  mental 
toil  and  pain  to  welcome  it  and  rejoice  in  it,  will 
you  call  him  your  foe  because  he  will  not  let  you 
wrap  yourself  in  your  gloom  and  live  away  in  your 
thought  ?  See,  now,  I  beseech  you,  that  Infinite 
justice,  besieging  thus  the  moral  side  of  our  be- 
ing, is  for  our  moral  education,  —  the  constant 
possibility  of  it,  the  constant  pledge  that  it  will 
not  be  neglected  1 


1 84    Deliverance  from  the  Fear  of  Death, 

The  highest  act  of  faith  which  the  soul  can 
utter  is  to  say  that  it  is  not  afraid  of  the  justice 
of  God,  into  whatever  world  it  may  be  lifted. 
When  a  friend  of  mine  is  taken  into  the  next  life, 
I  do  not  ask  to  know  if  he  is  at  once  perfectly 
happy,  or  how  soon  he  may  be  so.  I  ask  only  to 
know  if  he  has  gone  into  the  discipline  of  perfect 
justice.  I  would  not  be  afraid  to  give  up  my 
dearest  to  that.  Without  Infinite  justice  I  am 
5ure  that  God  cannot  be  perfectly  good.  And  I 
know  that  in  his  perfect  justice  he  cannot  hate 
me.  He  is,  and  must  be,  hostile  to  the  evil  that 
is  in  me,  because  that  keeps  me  from  him  and  cor- 
rupts my  spirit.  To  be  forsaken  of  Infinite  jus- 
tice, so  that  God  should  not  hold  you  under  his 
law,  or  care  for  your  improvement,  would  be  the 
dreadful  doom.  And  so,  if  I  were  about  to  pass 
into  the  next  world,  I  should  have  no  fear  to  pray 
that  Infinite  justice  might  search  me,  and  put  me 
to  its  sternest  discipline,  to  break  within  me  the 
power  of  evil  that  corrupts  the  affections  and  de- 
grades the  will. 

Dread  of  the  discipline  that  may  come  after 
death  is  dread  of  God,  and  that  is  indeed  bond- 
age. O  you  who  have  been  called  to  yield  your 
best  beloved  into  the  arms  of  that  messenger  that 
bears  the  spirit  from  the  outer  to  the  inner  shrine 
of  God's  great  temple,  let  no  doubt  that  the  Infi- 
nite Righteousness  is  friendly  to  his  children,  even 
when  they  are  stained  with  evil,  unsettle  or  becloud 
your  trust !     Whithersoever  w^e  go  in  God's  limit- 


Deliverance  from  the  Fear  of  Death,    185 

less  universe,  his  continual  and  blessed  purpose 
with  us  is  to  raise  us  up  to  see  his  truth,  enjoy  his 
glory,  serve  and  love  his  children,  adore  his  excel- 
lence, and  receive  his  life.  Nothing  but  evil  in 
ouf  constitution  can  prevent  us  from  advancing  in 
such  knowledge  and  such  joy ;  and  the  justice  of 
God  is  our  best  friend  hereafter,  if  it  prevents  us 
by  its  discipline  there  from  being  content  with 
evil,  and  if,  through  training  and  pain,  it  develops 
us  to  a  ready  and  large  reception  of  the  Divine 
spirit  and  love. 

Trust  in  God  is  the  all-essential  spirit  to  culti- 
vate, in  order  to  have  a  right  estimate  of  death, 
and  to  be  delivered  from  the  bondage  of  its  fear. 
God  is  the  grand  truth  of  this  universe.  God  is 
the  substratum  of  this  universe.  Light  and  dark- 
ness, the  kingdom  of  life  and  the  realm  of  death, 
are  all  embraced  in  the  circle  of  his  power  and 
goodness.  Live  as  close  as  you  can  to  him, 
by  listening  to  conscience,  by  a  consecrated  will, 
by  giving  your  pure  affections  play,  by  doing  good 
to  others  from  a  disposition  of  charity  which  you 
desire  to  deepen,  and  through  all  these  ways  seek- 
ing to  make  confidence  in  his  rule  and  trust  in 
his  infinitude  the  controlling  undermood  of  the 
heart ;  this  is  to  conquer  death  by  fastening  the 
spirit  to  the  very  source  of  life.  As  soon  as  we 
can  learn  to  feel  that  God  is  the  foundation  and 
support,  the  substance  and  sustenance,  of  our  souls 
and  all  that  is  around  our  souls  in  this  life,  and 
that  his  laws  are  perfect  and  his  love  constant 


1 86    Deliverance  from  the  Fear  of  Death, 

and  wise  now,  we  are  armed  against  all  fear  of  Ihe 
grave  or  of  a  change  of  worlds.  For  then  we 
shall  feel  that  if  God  sees  it  is  best  for  us  to  live 
hereafter  and  forever,  he  will  bear  us  across  the 
grave  ;  and  we  shall  feel  assured  that  God,  who 
changes  not,  will  be  as  wise,  as  patient,  as  just, 
and  as  merciful  in  the  circumstances  of  eternity 
as  in  those  of  time. 

The  Infinite  Spirit  invites  us  all  to  this  trust  in 
him,  to  as  much  confidence  in  his  justice  as  in  his 
mercy,  to  trust  in  him  who  is  equity  and  mercy 
and  truth  and  beneficence  equally,  perfectly,  and 
always.  Christ  would  help  us  to  conquer  death, 
and  all  the  ills  which  death  brings  to  our  homes 
and  hearts,  and  all  the  doubts  and  distresses  which 
the  contemplation  of  death  intrudes  upon  the 
soul,  by  inspiring  this  all-conquering  and  all-illu- 
mining trust.  Confidence  in  God  as  the  perfect 
Ruler,  Father,  and  Spirit  of  this  universe  is  Chris- 
tianity. By  opening  the  possibility  of  this  percep- 
tion and  reliance,  Christ  has  conquered  death  for 
us,  more  than  by  his  miracles,  his  resurrection, 
and  his  personal  defeat  of  the  grave.  He  gives 
us  the  sanctity  and  tenderness  and  sweetness  of 
his  spirit,  his  tmthfulness  and  his  love,  as  the 
complexion  to  throw  upon  the  Infinite,  so  that 
we  can  say,  Whoso  hath  seen  Christ  hath  seen 
the  Father.  In  the  spirit  of  trust  in  God's  govern- 
ment, in  time  and  eternity,  which  we  can  all  have 
by  denying  our  passions,  consecrating  our  will, 
and  opening  our  souls  to  heaven,  we  can  echo 


Deliverance  from  the  Fear  of  Death,    187 

the  saying  of  Paul :  "All  things  are  yours;  whether 
Paul,  or  Apollos,  or  Cephas,  or  the  world,  or  life, 
or  death,  or  things  present,  or  things  to  come ;  all 
are  yours,  and  ye  are  Christ's,  and  Christ  is 
God's." 

1857. 


XII. 


THE  TWO  HARVESTS. 


"The  harvest  is  past,  the  summer  is  ended,  and  we  are  not 
saved."  —  yeremiah  viii.  20. 

THE  text  sets  nature  in  solemn  contrast  with 
human  life,  —  "  The  harvest  is  past,  the  sum- 
mer is  ended,  and  we  are  not  saved,"  —  suggesting 
to  us  for  serious  thought,  not  merely  that  a  certain 
length  of  time  has  elapsed  and  we  have  been  spir- 
itually listless,  not  simply  that  an  opportunity  has 
gone  by  which  w^e  have  not  filled  with  duty,  but 
that  something  beneficent  and  sacred  has  been 
going  on  in  the  outward  world  with  which  we  have 
not  been  in  harmony ;  that  the  elements  have 
been  doing  their  work  while  we  have  been  mis- 
doing ours ;  and  that,  measured  against  nature,  at 
the  close  of  one  of  its  fruitful  seasons,  we  seem 
out  of  order,  discordant,  away  from  God,  unser- 
viceable, and  unprofitable  :  in  a  word,  "  we  are  not 
saved."  Turn  then  to-day  from  contemplating 
your  life  and  your  character  before  the  Biblical 
standard  of  purity  and  charity,  and  think  of 
human  life  in  contrast  with  the  characteristics 
of  nature's  principles  and  productiveness.     Think 


The  Two  Harvests.  189 

how  the  human  world  must  look  under  the  eye 
of  God,  relieved  against  the  loyalty  and  order  of 
nature  every  year ! 

The  harvest  is  past.  Not  a  spear  of  wheat  has 
grown,  not  a  kernel  of  corn  has  hardened,  not  a 
beet  has  reddened  in  the  ground,  not  an  apple  or 
a  plum  has  nursed  sweet  juices  through  the  tree 
out  of  the  ground,  that  has  not  revealed  or  illus- 
trated, in  the  process  of  its  growth,  a  principle 
which  ought  to  be  carried  out  in  nobler  ways 
by  human  souls.  Our  dependence  on  God,  our 
reception  of  his  light  and  his  spiritual  rain,  our 
fidelity  to  the  duty  of  the  circumstances  in  which 
we  are  set,  our  success  in  bending  chilly  days 
and  gusts  of  adversity  to  usefulness  in  strength- 
ening character,  ought  to  fulfil  the  lessons  which 
every  vine  and  every  tree  publish  in  their  use  of 
sunshine  and  soil  and  dew  and  storm. 

And  the  bounty  of  the  harvest  is  for  this  pur- 
pose. Think  what  that  bounty  has  been  in  this 
country  this  year !  If  we  could  gather  into  one 
mass  all  the  grains,  the  fruits,  and  the  vegetables, 
all  that  the  earth  has  yielded  and  that  man  may 
partake  of,  within  the  borders  of  our  own  nation 
during  the  last  six  months,  they  would  fill  a  store- 
house, as  high  and  as  wide  as  an  ordinary  country 
barn,  that  would  stretch  from  the  easternmost 
coast  of  our  country,  beyond  the  Mississippi, 
beyond  the  Rocky  Mountains,  to  the  Pacific 
shore  of  Oregon.  If  the  whole  bounty  of  Provi- 
dence during  the  creative   season  of   the  year 


1 90  The  Two  Harvests, 

should  be  massed  thus  by  the  Almighty,  and  our 
people  should  be  obliged  to  go,  person  by  person 
or  family  by  family,  to  such  a  monstrous  bin  to 
receive  their  share  of  the  land's  exuberance,  how 
poetic  and  how  impressive  would  the  munificence 
of  God  through  the  harvest  seem,  how  vividly 
would  our  dependence  be  revealed  to  us,  how 
unnatural  would  the  taking  of  the  heavenly  gifts 
without  gratitude  appear  !  And  if  now  we  take 
the  fruit  of  the  earth,  which  is  only  the  varied 
expression  of  the  punctuality  of  Providence  in 
the  weaving  of  the  seasons  and  the  alternations 
of  sunshine  and  shower,  and  if  we  renew  our 
strength  from  it  day  after  day  with  no  reverence 
in  our  thought  and  no  thankfulness  in  our  heart 
to  the  unsparing  and  unwearied  Giver,  then  the 
truth  of  the  text  is  directly  revealed  in  our  state  ; 
the  harvest  stands  as  the  background  to  show  off 
the  truth  that  "we  are  not  saved,"  —  that  we  are 
out  of  harmony,  through  the  coldness  of  our  sen- 
timent, with  the  boundless  beneficence,  —  since, 
while  every  loaded  ear  of  grain  bends  as  if  in  ado- 
ration of  creative  liberality,  we,  for  whom  it  was 
designed  and  nourished  by  the  Infinite,  receive 
from  it  no  motive  to  reverent  thanksgiving,  no 
impulse  to  joyous  prayer ! 

The  earth  is  for  man,  the  bounties  of  earth 
are  for  man  ;  and  the  success  of  every  harv^est, 
judged  from  the  spiritual  world,  is  tried  by  this 
test,  —  how  much  spiritual  fruit  does  it  mature  ? 
how  many  noble  human  qualities  blossom  out  of 


The  Two  Harvests r  191 

the  life  and  the  strength  which  the  earth's  bounty 
suppHes  ?  into  how  much  that  is  infinitely  higher 
than  nature  does  the  harvest  get  transformed  by 
being  lifted  up  into  man  ? 

O  brethren,  how  ought  we  to  be  saddened,  how 
ought  we  to  be  humbled,  how  ought  the  law  and 
call  of  the  Gospel  to  glow  before  us  in  the  colors 
of  a  fresh  solemnity,  when  we  think  of  the  differ- 
ence which  God  sees  when  he  turns  from  the 
natural  world  to  a  survey  of  the  human  world  !  In 
nature  all  is  order.  There  is  no  sinful  planet ; 
there  is  no  selfish  or  miserly  sun  ;  there  is  no 
galaxy  of  wicked  or  discordant  stars  \  the  winds 
are  not  rebellious  ;  the  sea  does  not  refuse  ser- 
vice ;  the  clouds  do  not  loiter  on  their  errands  \ 
the  hills  are  not  penurious  \  the  ground  does-  not 
bar  its  bosom  against  the  influence  of  sunbeams 
and  rains.  God's  law,  God's  holiness,  God's 
charity,  are  reflected  in  the  loyalty  and  the  purity 
and  the  fraternity  visible  in  all  the  facts  and 
forces  of  the  outward  world. 

But  when  the  Divine  eye  turns  from  the  house 
to  the  tenants,  what  discord,  what  folly,  what 
rebellion  !  Suppose  that  the  human  race  should 
be  turned  by  miracle  into  portions  of  the  natural 
world,  —  should  be  transformed  into  a  part  of  the 
vegetable  domain,  and  should  express  there  the 
same  qualities  that  they  exhibit  now  in  human 
ways,  the  same  passions,  the  same  bitterness, 
the  same  impurity,  the  same  selfishness,  the  same 
hatred,  instead  of  the   beauty  and  bounty  that 


192  The  Two  Harvests, 

now  adorn  and  load  the  valleys  and  the  hills, 
what  a  scanty,  shrivelled,  sour,  and  ugly  harvest 
would  appear  ! 

Suppose  that  you,  my  friend,  if  3'ou  are  leading 
a  life  unregulated  and  alien  from  God,  should  be 
turned,  just  as  you  are,  into  a  tree,  and  should 
act,  as  a  tree,  precisely  as  you  now  act  as  a  man. 
Your  disobedience  of  spiritual  laws  would  be 
shown  in  the  refusal  of  the  tree  to  throw  out  its 
roots  to  be  rightly  balanced  in  nature.  Your 
lack  of  spiritual  growth  would  be  exhibited  in  the 
neglect  of  the  tree  to  widen  its  rings,  and  stretch 
its  bark,  and  rear  its  trunk,  and  push  out  its 
boughs  every  year,  in  order  to  reach  its  intended 
stature.  The  poverty  of  your  spiritual  sensibili- 
ties would  appear  in  wan  and  shrivelled  leaves ; 
your  denial  of  heavenly  grace  in  the  opposition  of 
the  tree  to  quickening  sunshine,  and  its  resistance 
to  mellowing  rains  ;  the  wrong  thoughts  you  cher- 
ish, in  foul  insect-webs  and  broods  that  would 
net  the  branches  with  their  vile  and  deadening 
threads  ;  your  lack  of  service,  in  the  refusal  of 
the  tree  to  bear  any  fruit,  although  it  was  the 
intention  of  God  that  it  should  glorify  his  provi- 
dence in  branches  laden  with  sweet  benefactions 
to  the  race ;  your  vices,  in  the  rust,  the  mould,  or 
the  canker  on  the  bark,  telling  of  corrupt  juices 
within. 

How  many  men  there  are  who  would  recoil 
from  themselves  if  they  could  see  themselves 
thus  translated  down  into  some  portion  of  nature's 


The  Two  Harvests,  193 

lower  domain,  —  could  see  what  shrivelled  wheat, 
what  musty  corn,  what  blighted  grapes,  what  frost- 
bitten and  bitter  plums,  would  be  yielded  every 
year  if  nature  was  not  better,  in  its  order,  than 
they  are  on  their  plane?  O,  if  a  miser  could 
only  see  what  a  poor,  gnarled,  pinched  crab-apple 
tree  he  would  turn  into,  if  his  spirit  should  sink 
to  a  lower  order  of  creation  and  take  the  same 
rank  he  has  now ;  or  if  the  fretful  and  morose 
man  could  look  at  the  prickly  pear  that  is  his 
equivalent ;  or  if  the  man  of  depraved  principles 
could  have  a  fair  view  of  the  deadly  nightshade 
or  blistering  upas  he  would  turn  into  in  such  a 
metamorphosis,  —  no  more  stirring  or  burning  ser- 
mon could  be  preached  than  to  force  a  man  to 
look  thus  into  a  symbolic  mirror  of  himself. 

Do  you  not  see,  my  brethren,  how  pure,  how 
loyal,  how  serviceable,  you  must  be  in  order  to  be 
on  the  level  of  nature  ?  We  are  called  superior 
to  nature,  and  yet  the  autumn  fruitfulness,  the 
peace  of  the  outward  world,  condemn  us.  Tliere 
is  not  one  man  in  fifty  thousand,  the  globe  over, 
that  is  as  true  in  his  sphere  as  every  stalk  of 
corn  is  that  goes  into  an  autumn  sheaf.  There 
is  not  one  man  in  a  million,  take  Christendom 
through,  that  is  noble  enough  to  have  his  life,  in 
its  quality  and  its  fruitfulness,  represented  by  the 
history  of  an  average  peach-tree.  Every  closing 
summer,  every  completed  harvest,  preaches  to  us 
that  we  are  not  saved  by  showing  us  we  are  not 
up  to  the  suggestions  of  the  sphere  we  live  in ; 
9  M 


194  ^'^^^  ^^<^  Harvests, 

that,  as  a  race,  we  are  less  than  natural ;  and 
that  God  sees  more  of  himself  reflected  in  the 
harmonies  of  creation  than  in  the  fidelity  and 
the  fruitfulness  of  the  souls  made  in  his  likeness. 

The  Church  is  the  vineyard  in  which  we  are  to 
be  nurtured,  if  possible,  to  be  natural.  If  we 
were,  as  a  people,  up  to  the  level  of  the  life  sug- 
gested by  the  harvest  just  gathered,  what  frater- 
nity would  be  organized  into  our  society ;  what 
genial  and  constant  service  ;  what  far-running, 
complicated,  and  interlocked  unity  of  life  ;  what 
absence  of  infamy,  what  virtue,  what  joy !  It 
will  take  ages  of  experience,  disaster,  suffering, 
and  woe  before  the  grace  of  God  shall  find  human 
minds  wise  enough,  human  hearts  tender  enough, 
human  wills  submissive  enough,  to  band  them- 
selves into  a  society  that  shall  give  the  Infinite 
Father  as  much  joy  as  the  spectacle  of  the  har- 
vest gives  to  the  Infinite  Creator ;  before  that  old 
prophecy  can  be  realized,  foretelling  the  time 
when  man  shall  be  loyal  as  nature,  —  "As  the 
rain  cometh  down  and  the  snow  from  heaven,  and 
returneth  not  thither,  but  watereth  the  earth,  and 
maketh  it  bring  forth  and  bud,  that  it  may  give 
seed  to  the  sower,  and  bread  to  the  eater  :  so 
shall  my  word  be,  that  goeth  forth  out  of  my 
mouth  ;  it  shall  not  return  unto  me  void,  but  it 
shall  accomplish  that  which  I  please,  and  it  shall 
prosper  in  the  thing  whereto  I  sent  it." 

The  wealth  of  the  harvest,  you  know,  is,  in 
large  measure,  from  the  seed  scattered  or  planted 


The  Two  Harvests,  195 

in  the  spring.  And  see  how,  in  this  aspect  of  it, 
the  faithfulness  of  nature  supplies  a  serious  back- 
ground to  set  off  the  poverty,  the  unsaved  and 
unsafe  condition,  of  human  life.  What  a  ter- 
rible calamity  it  would  be  to  society  if  the  readi- 
ness of  the  earth  to  receive  and  welcome  the 
seeds  dropped  into  her  bosom,  and  protected  by 
human  watchfulness,  should  be  broken !  What  a 
dreadful  judgment  upon  us  all,  if  the  soil  should 
have  the  power  and  the  tendency  to  cast  them 
out  from  its  furrows,  to  refuse  them  shelter  and 
nutriment,  and,  instead,  to  take  down  into  its  mel- 
lowed substance  the  germs  of  briers  and  weeds ! 

And  yet,  would  such  a  change  in  the  disposi- 
tion and  forces  of  the  soil  do  anything  more  than 
bring  nature,  which  we  live  in,  into  accord  with 
the  tendencies  and  habits  of  our  inward  life? 
God  is  showering  seed  upon  your  soul  continu- 
ally. He  does  not  leave  you  a  day  without  send- 
ing a  quickening  lesson  or  a  noble  thought  or  a 
conviction  of  sinfulness  or  a  pure  motive  into 
your  soul.  Think  of  the  last  year  as  a  whole, 
and  how  many  blessed  appeals  and  influences 
have  reached  you,  —  how  many  sacred  solicita- 
tions to  live  more  reverently  than  you  have  lived, 
how  many  serious  pleadings  to  give  up  a  wrong 
indulgence,  how  many  warnings  against  the 
bondage  of  a  bad  habit,  how  many  stings  of  the 
sensibilities  for  your  moral  weakness,  how  many 
thrilling  invitations  to  live  more  usefully,  how 
many  sweet  calls  to  mount  up  to  a  higher  plane 


196  The  Two  Harvests. 

of  feeling  and  action,  where  you  would  find  more 
cheer  and  more  peace  !  How  thickly  has  God 
strewn  mercies  over  your  spirit  the  past  year  ! 
How  has  he  invited  you,  in  seasons  of  silence  and 
in  presence  of  nature,  to  recognize  him,  ever  so 
near  to  you ;  to  adore  him,  so  patient  and  faith- 
ful in  belting  you  with  his  power  and  laws ;  to 
rely  on  him,  upon  whom  all  nature  leans  !  How 
has  he  sprinkled  holy  words  of  Jesus  upon  your 
ear,  that  hold  the  central  truths  of  this  universe, 
and  that  are  saturated  with  the  very  essence  of 
his  love  !  How  has  he  shaken  the  rich  leaves 
of  the  Bible  over  your  nature,  loosening  from 
them  instructions  that  are  for  the  healing  of 
nations !  How  has  he  scattered  the  privileges 
of  Sunday  and  the  Church  over  your  hearts, — 
hymns  and  sacred  song  and  prayers  and  instruc- 
tions, to  whose  permanent  central  verity  your 
souls  have  often  said  Amen !  And  now  and 
then  God  has  disturbed  your  nature  with  trial,  or 
broken  it  with  adversity,  or  he  has  ploughed  it 
deep  and  powdered  it  with  sorrow,  and  then  with 
the  drill  of  heaven  he  has  sunk  some  truth  of  the 
celestial  order,  essential  to  your  enduring  welfare, 
into  your  being.  Ye  are  thus  God's  husbandry. 
And  what  result?  Each  of  these  whispers,  les- 
sons, messages,  was  sent  as  a  seed  to  reappear  in 
your  character,  as  the  grain  of  wheat  or  the 
kernel  of  corn  pours  upward  a  living  bounty  sixty- 
fold.  But  what  proportion  of  them  have  taken 
hold  of  your  hearts  ?     How  many  of  them  have 


The  Two  Harvests,  197 

not  perished  there  ?  How  few  of  them  that  have 
not  been  ejected  from  our  bosoms,  spurned  from 
the  hostile  substance  of  our  souls,  when  we  have 
found  what  consecration,  what  vigilance,  what 
noble  toil,  were  demanded  to  make  them  rooted 
and  fruitful  forces  of  our  life?  The  Infinite  Spirit 
looks  at  the  outward  harvest,  and  the  luscious 
music  of  the  Psalmist's  eloquence  exhales  from  it: 
"  The  little  hills  rejoice  on  every  side.  The  pas- 
tures are  clothed  with  flocks ;  the  valleys  also  are 
covered  over  with  corn ;  they  shout  for  joy,  they 
also  sing.''  He  looks  from  this  bounty  to  the 
wide  landscape  of  humanity,  and  what  is  there 
to  respond  as  the  antistrophe  to  that  chant  of 
nature,  but  the  words,  "  I  went  by  the  field  of 
the  slothful,  ....  and  lo,  it  was  all  grown  over 
with  thorns,  and  nettles  had  covered  the  face 
thereof,  and  the  stone  wall  thereof  was  broken 
down."  It  is  the  inversion  of  prophecy  that  we 
exhibit :  we  harbor  and  nurture  in  our  nature 
what  is  pleasant  to  the  selfish  mind  for  the  mo- 
ment; and  so,  despite  the  Divine  planting,  the 
thorn  comes  up  instead  of  the  fir-tree,  and  the 
brier  instead  of  the  myrtle-tree,  and  the  deso- 
lation stands  before  heaven  as  a  sign  that,  while 
"  the  harvest  is  past  and  the  summer  is  ended," 
past  and  ended  in  bounty  and  peace,  "  we  are 
not  saved." 

There  is  a  traditional  doctrine  in  the  Christian 
Church  that  the  earth  was  blasted  in  the  very  dawn 
of  history  for  human  sin.     I  beg  you,  in  justice  to 


198  The  Two  Harvests. 

the  bountiful  world,  to  see  how  false  this  is.  It 
is  better  than  we.  Notwithstanding  the  care  and 
the  toil  and  the  skill  that  must  be  expended  to 
evoke  a  harvest,  the  earth  is  unspeakably  more 
tractable,  more  obedient,  more  pure,  more  chari- 
table, than  we  are.  It  is  a  glorious  exhibition  of 
the  grace  of  God  that  he  saves  us  from  living  here 
in  a  world  that  corresponds  to  ourselves,  that  is 
far  nobler  than  we.  Swedenborg  tells  us  that  in 
the  next  world  our  surroundings,  our  whole  visible 
scenery,  will  be  the  reflection  or  the  emanation 
of  our  interior  personal  state.  Men  try  to  do  that 
in  this  world.  By  war,  by  sloth,  by  misrule,  by 
vice,  by  slavery,  men  try  to  ravage  and  desecrate 
and  starve  the  earth  to  respond  to  their  ignorance, 
folly,  hatred,  and  sin ;  but  the  earth  is  too  divine 
to  wear  the  image  steadily,  and  it  breaks  out  in 
new  beauty,  it  bursts  with  fresh  bounty,  it  honors 
anew  the  heavenly  laws,  as  if  to  preach  a  perpet- 
ual sermon  to  our  race,  enforcing  the  appeal  of 
Him  who  drew  a  lesson  from  agriculture  for  his 
Gospel,  and  winning  us  to  harmony  with  the  in- 
finite laws. 

Another  truth  which  the  contemplation  of  na- 
ture in  contrast  with  humanity  suggests,  and  espe- 
cially of  the  harvest  in  comparison  with  human 
fruitfulness  in  virtue,  is  the  openness  of  the  exter- 
nal world  to  the  inflowing  of  as  much  of  the  Di- 
vine life  as  it  can  hold.  Here  we  touch  the  deep- 
est lesson  which  our  subject  can  yield.  All  good- 
ness comes  from  reception  of  the  Divine  Spirit. 


The  Two  Harvests,  199 

All  increase  of  goodness  comes  from  enlarging  or 
multiplying  the  channels  for  the  reception  and 
absorption  of  the  Divine  life.  All  evil  is  from 
the  shutting  out  of  God,  or  the  perversion  of  his 
bounty  and  vitality  by  disease  or  sin,  in  the  forms 
which  he  has  fashioned  to  receive  it.  We  are 
nothing  of  ourselves.  "  Neither  is  he  that  planteth 
anything,  neither  he  that  watereth,  but  God  that 
giveth  the  increase."     "  Our  sufficiency  is  of  God." 

Now  nature  is  always  open  to  God.  His  laws 
find  free  course  and  are  glorified  up  through  all 
space,  from  our  tiny  planet  to  the  outer  edge  of 
the  milky  way.  Soften  the  soil,  watch  a  seed, 
prune  and  graft  a  tree,  and  the  blessed  grace  of 
sunshine  and  moisture  will  flow  out  through  fresh 
and  finer  channels,  and  publish  themselves  in 
more  lovely  and  savory  fruit.  The  harvest  is  the 
beneficent  transmutation  of  God's  quickening 
vitality  through  vegetable  veins  into  palpable  sus- 
tenance for  the  children  of  men,  the  annual  proof 
that  there  is  no  sin  in  the  arteries  of  nature. 

But  we  are  not  in  accord  with  it.  We  are  not 
saved  in  this  supreme  sense.  The  human  heart, 
the  human  will,  is  not  thus  open  to  God.  The 
wave  of  the  Divine  vitality,  passing  upward  from 
nature  where  it  runs  so  free  and  is  so  welcome, 
finds  obstruction  and  barriers  in  us.  God  is  ever 
striving  to  pour  himself  through  humanity  as  freely 
as  he  does  through  nature.  AVe  resist  him.  We 
beat  back  the  Infinite  truth  and  love.  We  close 
the  valves  through  which  he  must  enter. 


200  The  Two  Harvests, 

Do  you  ever  ask  why  there  is  so  much  evil, 
wretchedness,  wrong,  in  the  social  world  ?  —  why 
God  does  not  stay  it  or  cripple  it  or  annihilate  it, 
why  he  suffers  it  under  his  pure  and  loving  eye  ? 
I  tell  you,  my  troubled  friend,  God  is  trying  to 
reach  it.  He  can  reach  it  only  through  human 
affection,  human  labor,  human  organization.  When 
he  makes  a  perfect  apple  it  is  not  by  dropping  one 
from  the  skies,  but  by  effusing  his  spirit  through 
the  substance  of  a  tree  made  as  the  form  for  his 
life,  and  until  the  tree  is  ready  the  fruit  must  be 
delayed.  And  so  God  does  not,  perhaps  we  may 
say  cannot,  come  immediately  into  society,  into 
history,  to  grapple  with  evil.  He  must  move 
against  it  by  his  charity  through  human  hearts, 
the  form  of  charity ;  by  his  justice,  through  hu- 
man consciences ;  by  his  truth,  through  human 
intellects ;  by  his  energy,  through  human  wills. 
Wave  after  wave,  surge  after  surge,  is  beating  con- 
tinually from  the  spiritual  world  at  the  doors  of 
human  nature  to  get  through  and  sweep  away 
wrong.  We  resist  him.  You  and  I,  by  our  choice 
of  ease,  by  our  degraded  passions,  by  our  wrong 
use  of  money,  by  suffering  the  fires  of  aspiration 
to  die  out  and  do  no  work  for  lack  of  fuel,  resist 
him,  hold  off  his  holy  life  from  the  world,  bar  up 
so  many  avenues  through  which  he  would  strike 
at  evil  and  displace  it. 

"  Behold  I  stand  at  the  door  and  knock,"  is  the 
keynote  of  his  relations  to  humanity.  In  nature 
there  is  no  sinful  choice  or  will  to  stop  him.     In 


The  Two  Harvests.  201 

us  there  is.  That  we  have  such  a  will  is  our  glory, 
the  stamp  of  our  heavenly  birth,  the  possibility  of 
our  sonship.  That  we  use  it  so  is  our  shame, 
guilt,  and  peril.  And  history  moves  slowly  toward 
righteousness  and  social  order,  because  the  Infi- 
nite respects  this  capacity  in  us  too  highly  to  break 
it  down,  and  so  make  us  puppets  of  his  pleasure, 
and  because  he  can  find  no  swift  access  through 
us  to  build  up  the  kingdom  of  heaven  on  the  over- 
throw of  iniquity. 

A  few  days  ago  I  saw  in  New  York  in  a  gallery 
of  British  art  just  opened,  a  picture  by  a  living 
English  painter,  that  illustrates  this  last  and  most 
serious  suggestion  of  our  subject,  and  which  has 
been  pronounced  by  a  prominent  critic  "  one  of 
the  very  noblest  works  of  sacred  art  ever  produced 
in  this  or  any  other  age."  It  represents  Christ 
standing  at  the  door  of  a  cottage  and  knocking 
for  entrance.  In  his  left  hand  he  bears  a  lantern 
—  symbol  of  the  conscience  —  that  casts  a  red 
and  ominous  light.  He  is  clad  in  a  white  tunic, 
emblem  of  purity  and  the  power  of  the  Spirit; 
over  this  a  jewelled  blue  robe  and  breastplate,  as 
the  supreme  priest  of  humanity ;  and  upon  his 
head  is  the  crown  that  proclaims  him  king  of  men, 
intertwined  with  thorns  that  have  budded  into 
healing  leaves,  and  that  spread  an  intense  though 
serene  splendor  through  the  upper  space  of  the 
picture.  The  brow  is  wide  ;  the  eyes  are  solemn, 
sad,  and  tender ;  the  expression  of  the  mouth  is 
inexpressibly  sweet  and  calm.  Thus  he  stands 
9* 


202  The  Two  Harvests, 

knocking  at  the  cottage  door,  which  is  the  artist's 
representation  of  the  human  heart.  The  door  is 
shut.  It  is  the  avenue  through  which  heavenly 
visitations  must  enter,  and  it  has  plainly  been  long 
closed,  perhaps  never  opened  since  early  child- 
hood. It  is  barred,  and  the  bolts  are  rusty. 
Brambles  have  grown  up  thick  and  tall  before  it. 
Creeping  tendrils  of  ivy  have  fastened  on  its  stan- 
chions. A  bat  hovers  around,  showing  that  the 
air  is  dark  and  foul.  Majesty,  patience,  and  pity 
are  in  the  countenance  of  the  visitant  who  seeks 
to  be  a  guest.  Will  the  door  be  opened  ?  Will  the 
prickly  guards  and  the  rusty  fastenings  give  way 
in  response  to  those  solemn  and  gracious  blows 
from  eternity  that  should  rouse  the  sleeper  within  ? 
That  the  picture  does  not  tell  us.  That  the  face 
of  Christ  does  not  declare.  He  only  stands  and 
knocks. 

And  so  the  Spirit  stands  at  your  door  and  mine. 
And  so,  it  may  be,  the  brambles  greet  its  coming, 
showing  that  there  are  no  free  communications 
between  our  souls  and  heaven.  And  so  the  door 
may  be  locked,  and  tough  briers  may  beset  it,  and 
the  bats  may  flit  about  it,  to  tell  that  on  the  heav- 
enly side  of  our  nature  we  have  no  day.  And  so 
it  may  have  been  year  after  year.  While  nature 
is  open  and  orderly  and  bountiful,  we  may  be 
growing  more  and  more  hostile  to  heaven  and 
Christ  by  habit,  shut  up  within  ourselves,  desolate 
and  useless.  If  so,  the  condition  we  are  in  is 
the  sermon,  the  appeal,  the  pleading,  the  warning. 


The  Two  Harvests,  203 

The  Spirit's  most  solemn  knock  is  this  revelation 
to  us  of  our  state.  Shall  we  go  on  thus  listless, 
thus  defiant  of  celestial  pleadings,  till  earthly  sea- 
sons shall  draw  to  a  close  with  us,  till  the  cottage 
door  and  roof  of  our  mortality  shall  fall  and  leave 
us  in  the  open  infinite,  so  that  still  it  shall  be 
true  of  us,  "  The  harvest  is  past,  the  summer  is 
ended,  and  we  are  not  saved  "  ? 

1857. 


XIII. 

THE  ORGAN  AND  ITS  SYMBOLISM. 

"Praise  him  with  stringed  instruments  and  organs."  —  Psalms 
cl.4. 

THE  introduction  of  a  new  and  excellent  organ 
into  our  church  deserves  more  special  and 
elaborate  notice  than  we  gave  to  it  a  few  weeks  ago, 
when  its  music  made  its  first  appeal  to  our  hearts. 
To-day  I  intend  to  address  you  on  the  nobleness  of 
the  organ  as  an  instrument  of  religious  expression, 
and  the  symbolic  lessons  that  are  offered  to  us, 
through  its  structure,  concerning  spiritual  truth 
and  life. 

The  Psalm  from  which  the  text  is  taken  uses 
the  word  "  organ '' ;  but  the  writer  had  no  refer- 
ence to  such  an  instrument  as  we  have  placed  in 
our  church.  If  the  object  thus  designated  could 
be  brought  before  you,  you  would  see  a  series  of 
reeds,  which  the  performer  played  upon  by  his 
mouth,  —  no  more  like  the  complicated  structure 
before  me  than  a  minnow  is  like  Leviathan.  The 
true  organ  is  a  victory  of  far  later  skill.  The 
Christian  churches,  probably,  were  not  acquainted 
with  it  till  the  thirteenth  century.     And  the  op- 


The  Organ  and  its  Symbolism,      205 

portunity  to  have  organs  so  freely  in  our  houses  of 
worship,  and  of  so  high  an  average  of  excellence, 
is  a  privilege  which  the  last  hundred  years  have 
given  to  Christendom. 

A  grand  organ  is  a  work  of  art  in  a  high  sense, 
and  represents,  also,  a  long  succession  of  ingenious 
triumphs  over  mechanical  difficulties.  When  you 
listen  to  the  smooth  and  rich  combinations  of  tones 
poured  out  from  several  stops  of  our  organ,  and 
blending  admirably  into  a  massive  surge  of  har- 
mony, it  would  greatly  increase  your  appreciation 
of  the  music  if  you  could  have  a  sense  of  the 
complicated  apparatus,  and  the  slowly  mounting 
triumphs  of  skill  in  its  arrangement,  by  which  the 
inspiring  result  is  gained.  The  ordinary  concep- 
tion of  an  organ  is  compounded  simply  of  a  bel- 
lows, some  pipes,  and  keys.  Of  the  mysteries  of 
its  construction  we  are  most  of  us  as  ignorant 
as  w^e  are  of  its  history.  If  we  could  all  of  us 
be  made  acquainted,  to-day,  with  the  methods  by 
which  all  those  1,466  pipes  are  touched  "  to  fine 
issues,"  —  the  skill  with  which  the  all-animating 
air,  which  they  expire  in  melody,  is  supplied  to 
them  from  the  bellows,  through  the  wind-trunks, 
into  the  air-chests,  by  the  further  aid  of  grooves 
and  sound-boards  and  tables  and  sliders,  and 
then  by  what  cunning  economy  of  pressure  and 
spring  the  proper  amount  of  breath  is  driven 
through  each  tube  that  is  to  be  wakened  into  song; 
if  we  could  know  how  the  three  organs  of  which 
every  grand  instrument  is  composed  —  the  pedal, 


2o6       The  Organ  and  its  Symbolism, 

the  choir  organ,  and  the  swell  —  are  wrought  into 
unity,  how  by  couplings  they  can  be  made  to  play 
together  at  a  single  touch,  and  how  the  manuals 
and  pedals  have  been  prepared  by  dextrous  ma- 
chinery for  perfect  action ;  if  we  could  learn  by 
what  repeated  and  nice  experiments  the  best  woods 
and  metals  had  been  discovered  for  the  structure 
of  pipes,  and  the  finest  combinations  of  the  two 
kinds,  and  their  proper  length  for  different  notes 
and  for  the  best  tones,  and  how  new  stops  had 
been  invented  to  increase  the  compass  and  refine 
the  voice  of  the  instrument,  and  what  delicacy  of 
taste  is  required,  and  has  been  exhibited,  in  blend- 
ing and  balancing  the  songs  of  the  different  stops 
into  a  smooth  chorus,  kindred  with  the  skill  a 
master  shows  in  harmonizing  the  colors  of  a  pic- 
ture to  a  proper  tone ;  if  we  could,  further,  be 
made  sensible  of  the  patient  talent  that  has  been 
expended  in  contests  with  the  disorders  that  seem 
to  be  connected  of  necessity  with  an  instrument 
so  bulky,  complicated,  and  cumbrous,  to  prevent 
leakings,  rattlings,  unbidden  sounds,  creakings, 
and  hoarse  laborings  of  the  machinery,  and  the 
scores  of  troubles  which  the  changes  of  weather 
induce,  and,  beyond  these,  could  be  made  aware 
of  the  difficulties  that  have  been  grappled,  and  the 
genius  that  has  been  put  to  use,  in  connection 
with  the  whole  subject  of  temperament,  tuning, 
and  pitch  of  an  organ, —  we  should  see  that  we  get 
our  noble  instrument,  as  we  get  all  the  richest 
blessings  of  civilization,  out  of  the  benefactions  of 


The  Organ  and  its  Symbolism,      207 

centuries ;  we  should  look  upon  it  as  a  sign  and 
summary  of  the  dreams  of  scores  of  artists,  and 
the  adroitness  of  countless  artisans;  and  the  first 
lesson  its  music  would  breathe  into  our  souls 
would  be  a  new  rendering  of  the  words  of  Jesus, 
"  Other  men  labored,  and  ye  have  entered  into 
their  labors." 

And  yet  the  greatest  marvel  connected  with  an 
organ  is,  that  genius  makes  itself  felt  through  all 
the  varieties  and  intricacies  and  unwillingness  of 
its  mechanism.  It  does  not  seem  strange,  when 
a  man  is  blowing  a  bugle,  or  playing  upon  a  harp 
that  accompanies  his  song,  that  his  soul  should 
make  itself  felt  through  the  metal  and  the  strings. 
He  comes  into  immediate  connection  with  the  in- 
strument, and  we  can  understand  how  the  greater 
depth  or  richness  or  delicacy  of  feeling  of  one 
performer  should  make  itself  manifest  in  contrast 
with  another.  But  in  the  organ  the  performer  is 
put  at  a  great  distance  from  his  real  instrument. 
The  air  is  provided  by  unintelligent  machinery. 
He  touches  dead  keys  with  his  fingers,  and  wooden 
springs  with  his  feet,  and  they  pull  upon  lines  that 
open  valves  and  let  in  air,  according  to  fixed  rules, 
to  the  pipes  we  hear.  Yet  think  of  the  subtilty 
of  those  wooden  springs,  those  cords,  those  slides 
and  valves,  in  response  to  the  quality  of  the  touch 
whose  bidding  they  serve.  From  the  heart,  from 
the  intellect,  from  the  passion,  from  the  inmost 
soul  of  the  artist  the  exquisite  and  inexpressible 
thrill  is  conveyed   with  the   mechanical  impulse 


2o8       The  Organ  and  its  Symbolism. 

that  makes  the  pipes  vocal,  so  that  the  tones  tell 
you  by  their  purity,  their  modulation,  their  tremu- 
lousness,  their  exultant  soaring,  or  their  pathetic 
cadence,  the  rank  and  quality  of  the  feeling  or  the 
thought  that  has  possession  of  the  man  whose  fin- 
gers move  the  keys.  I  do  not  know  any  stronger 
testimony  to  the  creative,  and  we  may  almost  say 
miraculous,  power  of  human  genius  in  finding 
expression,  than  this  fact  that  an  organ,  so  en- 
cumbered with  machinery  which  would  seem  to 
neutralize  all  delicate  differences  in  the  pressure 
on  its  keys  and  the  pull  upon  its  strings,  is  just  as 
sensitive  to  the  quality  of  the  performer's  touch 
as  if  his  soul  were  directly  breathing  through  the 
pipes.  In  how  many  ways  does  God  try  to  tell  us 
that  this  world  is  arranged  by  his  wisdom  as  a 
scene  for  the  expression  of  character !  This  power 
of  genius  over  matter,  this  responsiveness  of  metal 
and  tube  and  string  to  the  inmost  emotion  of  the 
artist  as  well  as  to  the  coarser  pressure  of  his 
hand,  is  only  one  branch  of  the  greater  law  that 
all  which  we  are  publishes  itself,  that  our  secret 
quality  tends  to  proclaim  itself  as  from  the  house- 
top. As  we  are  seen  from  the  spiritual  world,  our 
latent  quality,  whether  good  or  evil,  is  seen  im- 
pressed on  our  conduct,  breathes  out  upon  the 
whole  sphere  that  surrounds  us.  AVe  play  off 
our  hidden  music,  whether  vile  or  holy,  upon  the 
world.  And  this  sensitive  echo  of  the  organ  to 
the  soul  of  the  performer  is  only  one  variation 
of  the  mighty  truth  that  undertones  the  govern- 


The  Organ  and  its  Symbolism,      209 

ment  of  God,  which  it  behooves  us  to  meditate,  and 
to  apply  to  our  states :  "  There  is  nothing  secret 
which  shall  not  be  made  manifest,  neither  anything 
hid  which  shall  not  be  known  and  come  abroad." 
But  let  us  turn  now  from  these  niceties  of 
artistic  expression  through  the  instrument  to  the 
general  quality  of  the  instrument  itself.  The 
merits  of  an  organ  are  not  to  be  spoken  of  with- 
out allusion  to  its  defects.  There  is  scarcely  any 
instrument  that  in  some  narrow  line  is  not  its 
superior.  In  fineness  and  delicacy  of  tone  and 
the  capacity  of  expressing  the  most  tender  and 
subtle  feeling,  there  is  no  portion  of  it  which  is 
comparable  with  the  violin ;  nor  can  any  of  its 
pipes  breathe  a  melody  so  sweet  as  a  perfect  flute 
exhales.  Its  distinction,  of  course,  lies  in  the 
complication  of  the  voices  that  lie  at  the  com- 
mand of  its  keys,  and  the  vast  range  of  its  tones, 
from  the  thunder  of  the  pedal  to  the  piercing  so- 
prano of  the  sesquialter.  It  is  a  whole  band  put 
at  the  service  of  a  single  will,  while  all  the  instru- 
ments, intoned  by  the  common  air,  have  a  quality 
fundamentally  kindred,  so  that  they  can  be  always 
kept  in  tune  and  time.  And  then  its  power  of 
sustaining  tones,  and  of  swelling  them  as  they  are 
prolonged,  distinguishes  it  as  greatly  from  all  other 
instruments  in  the  possibility  of  producing  grand 
effects  as  it  is  inferior  to  many  others  in  its  capacity 
for  uttering  refined  and  thrilling  melody.  For  maj- 
esty it  is  the  imperial  instrument.  The  viol,  the 
flute,  the  trumpet,  the  bugle,  each  is  an  organ  of 

N 


2IO       The  Organ  and  its  Symbolism, 

music,  but  this  is  emphatically  the  organ.  Let  a 
man  listen  to  one  built  up  to  the  full  resources  of 
modern  art,  as  it  should  pour  out  a  chorus  or  an- 
them of  Handel,  a  fugue  of  Bach,  or  the  close  of 
the  Ninth  Symphony  of  Beethoven,  and  how  appli- 
cable, while  his  soul  was  heaving  with  the  undula- 
tions thus  inspired,  would  the  language  seem  to 
the  instrument  which  a  poet  of  our  own  city  used 
of  Beethoven, — 

"  What  a  vast,  majestic  structure  thou  hast  builded  out  of  sound, 
With  its  high  peak  piercing  heaven  and  its  base  deep  under  ground  I 
Vague  as  air,  yet  firm  and  real  to  the  spiritual  eye, 
Seamed  with  fire  its  cloudy  bastions  far  away  uplifted  lie, 
Like  those  solemn  shapes  of  thunder  we  behold  at  close  of  day, 
Piled  upon  the  far  horizon  where  the  jagged  lightnings  play. 
Awful  voices,  as  from  Hades,  thrill  us,  growling  from  its  heart ; 
Sudden  splendors  blaze  from  out  it,  cleaving  its  black  walls  apart ; 
White-winged  birds  dart  forth  and  vanish,  singing  as  they  pass 

from  sight, 
Till  at  last  it  lifts,  and  'neath  it  shows  a  field  of  amber  light, 
Where  some  single  star  is  shining,  throbbing  like  a  new-bom  thing, 
And  the  earth,  all  drenched  in  splendor,  lets  its  happy  voices  sing." 

This  majesty,  thus  native  to  the  tone  and  move- 
ment of  the  organ,  makes  it  pre-eminently  the  in- 
strument for  religious  expression.  Many  of  the 
old  organs  intended  for  the  churches  of  the  Con- 
tinent were  grotesquely  ornamented  with  figures 
of  angels  bearing  trumpets  in  their  hands,  some- 
times with  kettle-drums  that  were  beaten  by  the 
movable  arms  of  angels,  and  now  and  then 
might  be  seen  on  one  a  gigantic  angel  hovering 
over  the  other  forms,  beating  time  with  a  baton. 
There  are  records,  too,  of  organs  on  which  the 


The  Organ  and  its  Symbolism.      211 

figure  of  King  David,  larger  than  life,  was  promi- 
nent, with  an  expression  of  joy  on  his  face,  play- 
ing the  harp.  Doubtless  the  cause  of  this  repul- 
sive tawdriness  was  the  undisciplined  feeling  that 
the  organ  is,  by  eminence,  the  ally  of  the  Church, 
and  the  appropriate  voice  of  the  most  profound 
and  the  most  soaring  sentiments  inspired  by  re- 
ligion. Especially  was  there  fitness  in  placing  the 
rude  effigy  of  David  upon  the  casing  of  the  in- 
strument. How  would  he  have  rejoiced  if  this 
musical  mammoth  had  been  known,  in  something 
like  its  present  proportions,  in  his  day;  if  he 
could  have  said,  in  our  sense  of  the  term,  "  Praise 
Him  with  stringed  instruments  and  organs  " ;  if, 
instead  of  the  feeble  harp  to  fan  his  poetic  and 
pious  glow  when  he  retired  to  meditate  on  the 
sparkling  wonders  of  the  firmament,  and  to  com- 
pare their  eloquence  about  the  Divine  Presence  to 
the  melodious  quiver  of  silver  strings  stretched 
across  the  night,  or  to  celebrate  the  power  of 
God  shown  in  the  shaking  of  the  wilderness  by 
the  storm,  or  the  influence  that  heaves  and  stills 
the  sea,  or  the  shooting  of  lightnings  as  coals  of 
fire,  and  the  bursting  of  the  torrents  upon  the  hill- 
sides when  the  foundations  of  the  mountains  were 
shaken  because  He  was  wroth,  he  could  have 
seated  himself  in  some  retired  chamber  of  his 
palace,  at  such  an  instrument  as  we  have  here  to- 
day, and  quickened,  while  he  expressed,  the  holy 
passion  that  swept  him  through  the  responses  to 
it  from  the  colossal  heart  which  he  wakened  by 


212       The  Organ  and  its  Symbolism, 

keys !  If  this  could  have  been,  the  Bible  would 
be  richer  to-day  in  Psalms.  There  was  no  instru- 
ment —  trumpet  or  sackbut  or  psaltery  —  which 
he  did  not  bring  into  the  temple  and  command  to 
open  its  voice  unto  God.  And  if  in  his  day  an 
instrument  so  peculiarly  pitched  in  unison  with 
the  reaches  of  thought  and  the  vastnesses  of  feel- 
ing that  pervade  the  principal  Psalms  could  have 
been  at  his  service  in  his  creative  moments,  to 
stimulate  and  convey  the  emotion  that  strove 
within  him,  we  may  doubt  if  language  could  have 
borne  the  tumultuous  heavings  of  his  rapture  or 
the  mountings  of  his  adoration.  We  may  doubt 
whether  we  should  not  have  had  anthem-chords 
like  those  of  Handel  two  thousand  years  before 
the  time,  and  have  received  the  Psalms  on  the 
mighty  wings  of  harmonies  born  of  the  Spirit  on 
Mount  Zion. 

It  is  well  that  we  have  one  instrument  which 
belongs,  by  its  very  temperament  and  the  rever- 
ence of  its  cadences,  to  the  religious  sentiment. 
And  is  it  not  suggestive  when  we  find  that  it  is  the 
grandest  of  all  instruments,  the  one  which  cen- 
turies have  been  widening  and  perfecting,  that 
offers  itself  thus  to  religion,  that  moves  as  it  were 
instinctively  to  the  service  of  the  church,  that  do- 
mesticates itself  at  once  in  the  sanctuary  ?  Is  it 
not  a  voice  in  favor  of  the  reverence  in  things,  a 
voice  proclaiming  the  inherent  and  everlasting 
sanctity  of  music  itself,  a  voice  that  ought  to 
pierce  the   nature  of  every  unconsecrated  man, 


The  Organ  and  its  Symbolism.      213 

when  we  find  that  the  moment  we  combine  wood 
and  metal  and  receptacles  of  air  by  such  cunning 
and  into  such  proportions  as  to  make  the  most 
lordly  of  instruments,  its  rhythm  and  its  motions 
are  such  that  it  refuses  to  be  secular?  Profane 
uses  cannot  handle  it.  It  will  not  go  to  the  bat- 
tle nor  the  dance  nor  the  serenade.  It  asks  for 
psalms  and  anthems,  for  masses  and  misereres.  It 
is  the  holy  Nazarite,  and  cannot  leave  the  courts 
of  the  Lord. 

I  have  developed  this  point  that  you  may  pos- 
sibly be  led  to  feel,  as  we  all  ought  to  feel,  the 
privilege  we  enjoy  in  having,  by  the  grace  of 
genius  in  these  later  centuries,  an  instrument  in 
our  churches  answering,  through  the  complication 
of  its  structure  and  the  range  of  its  expression, 
to  the  majesty  and  breadth  of  the  Bible  itself,  an 
instrument  which  seems  to  be  the  Bible  recast 
into  ranges  of  pipes,  octaves  sublime  as  though 
the  book  of  Exodus  were  melted  into  music,  and 
chords  pathetic  and  yearning  as  the  lament  of 
Jesus  over  Jerusalem.  And  further,  that  the  rev- 
erent and  adoring  quality  and  movement  of  its 
music  may  address  us  hereafter,  as  it  prepares  us 
for  worship  or  helps  us  in  devotion,  with  an  ap- 
peal for  religious  living,  as  the  only  truth  of  the 
moral  world,  since  God  has  made  the  natural 
world  on  such  a  plan,  and  intoned  dead  matter 
with  such  affinities,  that  the  very  breathings  and 
vibrations  of  the  air,  in  the  chief  instrument  of 
music,  have  the  spirit  and  measure  of  chants  and 
hymns. 


214       The  Organ  and  its  Symbolism, 

The  organ,  moreover,  to  one  familiar  with  its 
structure,  and  with  an  eye  that  readily  seizes  a 
symbol,  suggests  a  valuable  lesson  -concerning  the 
diversities  of  the  religious  world.  Every  organ  is 
composed  of  several  series  of  pipes,  each  series 
being  called  a  stop.  The  value  of  each  stop  is, 
that  it  breathes  out  and  modulates,  with  more  or 
less  compass,  a  certain  pervading  quality  of  tone. 
Some  stops  cannot  be  played  together  without 
producing  painful  discord,  so  penetrative  and  total 
is  their  dissonance ;  while,  if  a  larger  number  are 
drawn,  so  that  we  get  nearer  to  the  full  compass 
of  the  instrument,  they  broaden  and  enrich  the 
harmony. 

Now,  have  we  not  here  a  noble  language  for 
expressing  the  structure  and  diversities,  the  uses 
and  the  service,  of  the  parties  and  the  literatures 
of  the  Christian  Church  ?  The  Church  is  one, 
like  an  organ  j  it  is  diverse  and  broken,  like  the 
ranges  of  its  pipes.     The  sects  are  its  stops. 

I  beg  you  to  see,  brethren,  by  an  attentive  con- 
sideration, that  this  is  not  a  fancy,  and  that  it  is 
not  merely  speculative  and  unpractical.  I  beg 
you  to  see  that  the  organ  is  able  to  help  us  to  a 
principle  that  is  just  and  generous,  and  that  stim- 
ulates a  wise  charity.  The  Church  universal  lives 
by  the  breath  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  It  is  the  Holy 
Spirit,  sweeping  into  history  from  the  infinite 
deep  of  God  and  making  itself  vocal  in  the  litera- 
ture and  life  of  Christendom,  through  consecrated 
minds  and  sanctified  souls  and  beneficent  hands. 


The  Organ  and  its  Symbolism,      215 

So  broad  is  the  current  of  the  truth  which  first 
broke  into  our  stagnant  air  over  Palestine,  and 
has  been  widening  since  upon  the  nations,  that  it 
wakens  peculiar  tones  of  every  temperament,  and 
strikes,  as  we  may  say,  a  fresh  chord  in  every 
century.  We  cannot  too  often  repeat  that  Chris- 
tianity is  not  a  certain  amount  of  religious  truth 
locked  up  in  a  written  record,  but  that  it  is  a 
holy  influence  from  the  spiritual  world,  which 
struck  one  or  two  keynotes  at  its  first  coming, 
filling  the  soul  of  Jesus  and  a  few  Apostles  with 
their  melody,  and  which  pours  on  to  waken  some 
new  chord  and  variation  in  every  nation  and  age. 
The  true  point  in  Scripture  from  which  to  survey 
it,  and  by  which  it  should  be  interpreted,  is  the 
record  of  Pentecost,  when  the  rushing  mighty 
wind  filled  the  house  where  the  disciples  gath- 
ered, and  kindled  such  speech  that  men  of  various 
kingdoms  heard  each  class  in  their  own  tongue. 

So  it  has  been  ever  since.  Out  of  various  tem- 
peraments, which  cannot  coincide  precisely  in  their 
tones,  and  which  lie  open  by  their  structure  to 
different  modulations  of  religious  truth,  the  Spirit 
evokes  the  voices  which  it  needs.  The  sects  are 
various  stops  in  the  organ  of  Christendom.  Some 
are  narrow  in  their  range,  and  give  us  no  sweep- 
ing, largely  rounded  literature.  Some  waken  for 
us,  when  they  are  drawn,  like  the  Methodist,  the 
cheering  gamut  of  grace.  Some,  like  the  Cal- 
vinists,  shake  the  air  with  the  mutterings  of  Infi- 
nite wrath  and  the  thunderous  vibrations  of  the 


21 6      The  Oi'gan  and  its  Symbolism, 

law.  Some  are  the  dulciana  stops,  that  sprinkle 
sweetness  and  cheer,  like  sunshine,  upon  souls  ; 
some  are  ranged  for  the  mystic  melodies  that 
repeat  the  keynote  of  the  Gospel  of  John  ;  and 
some,  like  the  Universalists,  are,  in  the  structure 
of  Christendom,  like  the  viol-d'amour  stop,  that 
is  so  sweet  in  our  own  organ,  repeating  contin- 
ually the  pathos  and  pleadings  of  Infinite  love. 

Even  the  three  great  divisions  of  the  Christian 
Church  —  the  Catholic  or  Ritual,  the  Evangelical 
or  Sacrificial,  and  the  Spiritual,  which  includes  all 
the  branches  of  liberal  Christianity  —  repeat  the 
three  separate  organs  —  pedal,  choir,  and  swell  — 
that  are  blended  to  complete  every  full-toned  in- 
strument. 

Still,  I  ask  you  to  see  that  I  am  not  led  away 
by  this  analogy.  Of  course,  I  do  not  mean  to 
assert  that  the  hostile  dogmas  of  different  sects 
are  necessary  to  the  completeness  and  unity  of 
Christian  truth.  A  dozen  intellectual  contradic- 
tions cannot  combine  into  catholic  verity.  But 
the  sentiments  which  different  churches  stand 
for  and  work  out,  though  they  may  be  connected 
with  doctrines  that  are  utterly  uncongenial,  are 
essential  to  the  fulness  of  religious  truth  and  the 
complete  compass  of  the  Spirit  in  the  Church. 
Churches  and  sects  exist  by  and  for  the  senti- 
ments they  appeal  to  and  feed.  Their  dogma  is 
husk ;  this  is  corn.  I  do  not  believe  the  Calvin- 
istic  creed :  perhaps  no  two  consecutive  or  se- 
lected propositions  of  it  coincide  with  the  intel- 


The  Organ  and  its  Sy\ 

lectual  truth  of  heaven.  But,  brethren,^''!^re  L 
severity  and  stringency  in  the  law  of  God  a^Kl  in  ~<y/- 
its  hold  upon  us,  as  solemn,  as  certain,  as  awfu!^^  -^ 
as  the  hoarse  sub-bass  of  Calvinism.  It  is  not  the  ^x^ 
whole  music  of  Christendom,  but  it  is  the  ground 
tone  of  the  truth  of  things.  If  you  say  that  it 
arbitrarily  dooms  a  soul  to  eternal  woe,  you  misin- 
terpret it ;  if  you  strike  it  out  from  your  concep- 
tion of  life  and  the  universe,  you  debiUtate  the 
Gospel,  and  strike  out  the  pedal  terrors,  that, 
none  the  less  for  Christ^s  coming,  roar  around  a 
deliberately  evil  career  and  character.  So,  too, 
there  is  truth  in  the  love  of  God,  his  patient  wait- 
ings pleading,  never-tiring  love,  sweet  as  the  most 
cordial  Universalism  ever  breathed.  The  Uni- 
versalists  may  be  wrong  at  a  thousand  points  in 
their  rendering  of  texts,  and  their  combination 
of  proofs  for  their  doctrine  from  Scripture;  but  in 
this  sentiment,  and  in  their  faith  that  the  love  of 
God  for  each  particular  soul  will  last  as  long  as 
his  justice  and  as  long  as  eternity,  they  are  not 
wrong.  Only  both  the  truths  must  go  together; 
the  grace  and  the  bass  must  interblend,  one  giv- 
ing body  to  the  other,  and  one  mellowing  the 
other;  neither  must  be  hampered  by  fetters  of 
time,  or  interpreted  in  regard  to  time,  before  you 
get  the  true  harmony  of  the  Spirit.  Still  further, 
there  is  a  depravity  in  human  life  deep  and 
dreadful  as  the  plummet  of  Augustine  sounded ; 
and  there  is  glory  in  human  nature  high  and 
lustrous  as  the  vision  that  charmed  the  upward 


2i8      The  Organ  and  its  Symbolism, 

gaze  of  Channing ;  there  is  a  homely  substance 
to  all  true  religion  which  no  moralist,  wedded  to 
the  Epistle  of  James,  can  set  forth  too  roughly, 
and  there  is  a  mystic  truth  in  correspondences 
between  the  celestial  and  the  visible  world  as 
penetrating  and  comprehensive  as  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  and  the  uncounted  volumes  of  Swe- 
denborg  would  disclose.  The  intellectual  settings 
may  be  inaccurate,  but  the  spiritual  truth,  the 
sentiments  they  enclose,  are  right,  and  increase 
the  compass  of  the  Spirit  in  Christendom  and  the 
volume  of  its  harmony. 

It  is  well  to  remember,  in  connection  with  this 
symbolism  of  the  organ,  that  only  those  elements 
of  the  faith  and  life  of  every  church  which  can 
pass  up  into  noble  anthems,  chants,  and  hymns, 
which  can  be  set  to  music,  are  its  worthy  and  en- 
during elements.  You  cannot  put  proofs  of  the 
trinity  or  controversial  supports  of  the  unity  of 
God,  the  arguments  of  Bishop  Bull  or  the  argu- 
ments of  Professor  Norton,  into  hymns.  You 
cannot  chant  rubrics,  and  thirty-nine  articles,  and 
damnatory  clauses  of  the  Athanasian  formula. 
But  reverence  for  God,  devout  prostration  before 
the  law  which  "  the  Father  "  represents,  love  for 
the  pity  and  sacrifice  which  "  the  Son  "  interprets, 
joy  in  the  ever-present  grace,  and  prayer  for  the 
quickening  life,  which  "  the  Spirit "  symbolizes, 
adoration  of  Infinite  holiness,  submission  to  Infi- 
nite sovereignty,  grateful  trust  in  Infinite  love,  — 
sentiments  in  which  Trinitarian  and  Unitarian, 


The  Organ  and  its  Symbolism,      219 

Calvinist  and  Arminian,  Partialist  and  Universal- 
ist,  come  at  once  into  fellowship,  —  these  fly  to 
music  for  expression.  And  this  would  be  a  good 
test  of  the  breadth  and  richness  of  the  faith  of 
any  sect,  —  how  much  of  it  could  be  lifted  directly 
out  of  propositions  and  be  better  worked  off  into 
expression  on  an  organ,  and  how  much  of  the 
whole  amplitude  of  the  organ,  from  its  rumbling 
ground-tier  of  pipes  to  its  softest  lute-vibrations 
would  it  call  into  play  ? 

No  sect  can  command  the  whole  chromatic 
gamut  which  the  Gospel  sweeps.  Here  is  the  con- 
tinual call  for  charity  and  humility  and  joy  in  the 
comprehensiveness  of  Christianity.  It  needs  the 
full  choir  of  churches  for  its  expression.  It  can- 
not spare  any  stop  in  the  organ-growth  of  history. 
Each  new  sect  that  endures  is  a  new  range  of 
pipes,  taking  up  a  slighted  sentiment,  or  working 
some  more  delicate  tone  or  elaborate  variation 
into  the  symphony  of  grace.  We  shall  drop  our 
intellectual  differences  about  trinity  and  unity, 
free  will  and  constraining  grace,  when  we  reach 
heaven.  But  we  shall  still  be  ranged,  there  as 
here,  by  the  sentiments  we  most  naturally  give 
utterance  to.  We  shall  see  then,  doubtless,  what 
need  there  is  of  the  utmost  power  of  every  party 
to  celebrate  the  circle  of  the  Divine  glory,  how 
deep  is  the  justice,  how  high  the  love,  how  wide 
the  providence,  that  are  twined  into  the  pure  har- 
mony of  the  heavenly  hallelujah. 

I  regret  that  time  is  not  left  me  to  develop  the 


220      The  Organ  and  its  Symbolism, 

points  of  analogy  between  a  man  —  each  human 
soul  —  and  an  organ  ;  affinities  that  are  no  more 
interesting  than  they  are  impressive,  practical,  and 
searching.  St.  Paul  compared  the  human  soul  to 
a  temple,  which  was  the  grandest  work  of  genius 
he  knew ;  and  the  highest  value  of  any  command- 
ing piece  of  art  is  to  reflect  back  upon  us  some 
testimony  to  the  complexity  and  marvel  of  our 
own  constitution. 

There  is  not  a  person  here  whose  spirit  is  not 
an  unspeakably  more  intricate  and  delicate  organ- 
ism than  the  instrument  we  are  speaking  of. 
Your  powers,  as  related  to  the  chief  duties  of  life 
and  the  structure  of  society,  are  fitly  represented 
by  the  sets  of  pipes  in  the  organ.  In  every  man 
there  is  the  domestic  stop,  the  business  stop,  the 
political  stop,  the  religious  stop.  Some  men  do 
not  show  the  fineness  of  their  capacity  till  a  par- 
ticular one  of  these  is  drawn  and  played  alone. 
They  are  hard  in  trade,  but  genial  and  sweet  at 
home ;  or  they  honor  integrity  in  their  dealings, 
but  do  not  support  national  loyalty  to  the  highest 
truth  in  their  votes  and  public  influence ;  or  they 
are  good  citizens  and  good  parents,  but  not  rev^- 
erent  citizens  of  God's  kingdom,  the  range  of 
their  religious  affections  being  small  and  seldom 
waked  into  articulation.  The  true  man  is  in  tune 
through  the  whole  series  of  his  faculties,  and  will 
not  suffer  that  any  powers  which  God  has  wrought 
into  his  nature  shall  be  closed  against  his  Spirit 
and  be  wasted  by  disuse. 


The  Organ  and  its  Symbolism.      221 

Ah,  brethren,  we  should  call  it  desecration  if 
the  instrument  that  leads  our  choir  should  be  pro- 
faned every  Sunday  by  the  touch  of  levity,  waking 
only  inane  or  frivolous  music  from  its  deeps.  But 
how  is  it  with  us?  What  if  God  hears  more 
Christian  melody,  more  religious  aspiration,  more 
of  the  phrasings  of  humility  and  the  soarings  of 
devout  joy,  from  that  instrument  than  from  us  ? 
What  if  we  are  lower  than  that  and  are  condemned 
by  it  ?  What  if  it  is  our  souls  that  are  desecrated 
by  successions  of  trivial  thoughts,  by  frivolous 
habits,  by  impure  passions,  by  unserviceable  liv- 
ing, so  that  they  send  no  music,  comparable  with 
that  of  this  unconscious  Cyclops,  to  the  throne  ? 

Every  great  theme  leads  at  last,  somehow,  to 
him  who  gives  us  the  stature  of  a  perfect  man, — 
'to  Jesus  Christ. 

There  is  a  singular  legend  connected  with  the 
village  of  Eusserthal  in  Switzerland,  which  takes 
its  name  from  a  convent  that  was  once  celebrated 
but  has  now  completely  disappeared.  The  choir 
of  the  convent  church  is,  however,  still  left,  and 
is  used  as  a  place  of  worship.  Large  stories  are 
told  in  the  village  about  the  enormous  wealth  of 
the  convent,  especially  about  a  certain  golden 
organ  that  once  stood  in  the  church,  and  was 
played  during  divine  service.  When  the  convent 
was  on  one  occasion  attacked  by  enemies,  the 
first  care  of  the  monks  was  to  secure  this  treasure. 
They  dragged  it  to  a  marsh  which  was  formerly  in 
the  valley,  and  sank  it  as  deep  as  they  could. 


222       The  Organ  and  its  Symbolism, 

However,  they  had  saved  their  treasure  to  no  pur- 
pose, inasmuch  as  they  were  compelled  to  fly,  and 
died  in  distant  parts,  while  the  convent  fell  to 
ruin.  Every  one  is  perfectly  aware  that  the  organ 
is  still  somewhere  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
church,  but  the  precise  spot  where  it  lies  is  utterly 
unknown.  Nevertheless,  every  seven  years  it  rises 
out  of  the  depths  at  midnight,  and  its  sublime 
tones  are  heard  in  the  distance.  Nothing  is  at  all 
comparable  to  the  gentle  breathings  of  the  golden 
pipes  in  the  open  air  during  the  solemn  stillness 
of  night.  Soon  the  soft  tones  swell  into  mighty 
billows  of  sound,  w^hich  rush  through  the  narrow 
valley,  until  the  noise  again  subsides,  and  ends 
with  a  light  echo  in  the  forest.  But  no  one  has 
ventured  to  obtain  a  sight  of  the  organist  who 
holds  the  music  in  his  power,  and  thus  the  discov- 
ery of  the  treasure  is  reserved  for  the  future.  So 
the  Spirit  of  God  once  filled  the  avenues  of  our 
humanity  in  the  soul  of  Jesus,  mysteriously  born, 
mysteriously  taken  from  the  world,  —  the  golden 
organ  of  celestial  truth  and  human  capacity  and 
Infinite  love.  And  so,  though  buried  deep  by  the 
thick  selfishness  and  injustice  of  this  w^orld,  that 
music  once  heard  on  the  open  day  in  far-off  Pal- 
estine rises  again  and  swells  over  the  din  of  war, 
over  crime,  over  slavery,  over  all  hatreds  and  all 
wrong.  We  listen  when  its  sweetness  rolls  thus, 
and  rises  and  swells  and  sweeps,  and  we  say,  that 
is  truth,  that  is  religion,  that  is  the  music  to  which 
our  souls  were  attuned  in  heaven.     Strive  and 


The  Organ  and  its  Symbolism,      223 

pray,  my  brother,  to  bring  your  soul  into  chord 
with  it,  that  it  may  in  part- be  repeated  through 
you,  and  widened  beyond  you,  so  that  you  may  do 
something  to  help  the  world  come  into  harmony 
with  it,  so  that  the  very  mountains  shall  break 
forth  into  singing  and  all  the  valleys  be  filled  with 
joy. 

1857. 


XIV. 

THE  SUPEEME-COTTRT  DECISION,*  AND  OTJE 
DUTIES. 

"  Thou  hast  multiplied  the  nation,  and  not  increased  the  joy."  — 
Isaiah  ix.  3. 

THE  difference  between  national  power  and 
national  character,  between  the  success  and 
the  worthiness  of  a  state,  is  suggested  at  once  by 
these  words.  Scientific  insight  shows  us  that  a 
planet  is  under  the  dominion  of  the  law  of  gravi- 
tation precisely  as  a  pebble  is ;  and  religious  in- 
sight leads  us  to  study  the  life,  and  estimate  the 
merits  and  the  perils,  of  an  empire  in  the  same  light 
and  by  the  same  standards  that  we  should  apply 
to  any  single  person.  And  so  religious  insight 
prevents  us  from  accepting  the  mere  numbers,  the 
opulence,  the  prominence,  and  the  power  of  a 
state  as  sufficient  justification  for  joy  in  its  exist- 
ence, just  as  it  forbids  us  to  acknowledge  such 
tests  for  private  persons.  If  a  man  is  a  sensualist, 
a  knave,  a  gambler,  or  a  ruffian,  no  honest  mind 
thinks  of  praising  him,  or  of  calling  him  respect- 
able, because  he  is  strong-limbed  and  in  florid 

*  In  the  case  of  Dred  Scott. 


The  Supreme-Court  Decision.         225 

health,  because  he  lives  in  a  handsome  house, 
is  worth  a  million,  and  adds  largely  every  year  to 
his  meadows  and  park.  These  splendid  circum- 
stances only  furnish  a  pedestal  for  a  piece  of 
incarnate  depravity  to  make  its  vileness  conspicu- 
ous and  repulsive.  And  a  nation  may  be  vigorous 
in  physical  health,  and  may  be  gaining  thus,  while 
it  is  going  backward  and  downward  in  character. 

The  noble  elements  which  a  nation  embodies 
and  represents,  and  which  gleam  as  expressions 
upon  the  lineaments  which  its  countenance  will , 
wear  in  history,  constitute  its  glory.  Mere  num- 
bers, as  of  the  Chinese,  Hindoos,  or  Turks,  awaken 
no  satisfaction  in  the  competent  student. 

The  brawny  energy  that  tugs  at  the  conquest  of 
nature ;  that  pushes  out  pioneers  whose  axes  mow 
the  wilderness,  and  whose  ploughs  furrow  the 
prairies  ;  that  quarries  counties  for  coal,  and  tames 
the  torrents  for  its  wheels,  and  clamps  state  with 
state  by  iron,  and  plucks  the  pines  for  the  masts 
of  its  "  great  ammirals,"  and  makes  the  air  over 
wide  longitudes  buzz  with  furious  and  cunning 
mechanism,  —  this,  in  contrast  with  lazy  content 
or  nerveless  beggary,  properly  awakens  joy  in 
the  aspect  of  a  nation.  And  when,  out  of  this 
groundwork  of  enthusiastic  strength,  an  intellectual 
force  is  born  that  dots  the  land  with  schools, 
which  lead  up  to  academies,  and  in  turn  are 
crowned  with  colleges,  from  which  literatures  blos- 
som and  shed  the  fragrance  of  culture  and  poetry 
in  the  social  air,  there  is  new  and  higher  call  for 
10*  o 


226         The  StipreTne-Court  Decision^ 

satisfaction  and  gratitude.  And  if  a  religious 
spirit  presses  for  utterance  out  of  the  widening 
life  of  the  state,  so  that  churches  grow  as  nat- 
urally from  its  soil  as  court-rooms,  capitols,  and 
schools ;  and  if  the  religion  of  the  people,  in- 
stead of  being  a  selfish  commerce  with  infinite 
power  for  private  insurance  against  suspected 
peril,  is  a  reverent  and  glad  recognition  of  the 
Infinite  mind  as  the  source  of  truth,  and  the  In- 
finite heart  as  unspeakable  love,  and  the  church 
spires  catch  a  life  from  heaven  that  runs  into  the 
deeps  of  the  popular  soul,  quickening  the  general 
conscience,  softening  the  common  heart,  kindling 
the  national  mind,  so  that,  if  poverty  begins  to 
border  the  general  plenty,  the  national  genius  turns 
to  study  for  the  wisest  relief  of  it  by  the  quick 
impulse  of  duty,  and  when  vice  and  crime  burst  to 
the  surface  the  conscience  of  the  state  is  moved 
as  quickly  to  devise  cures  as  to  build  prisons  ;  and 
if,  as  destitution  and  degradation  and  hostilities  of 
class  and  race  increase  and  deepen  through  the 
unskilful  organization  of  interests,  aptitudes,  and 
property,  the  religious  vitality  still  multiplies  its 
help,  in  schools  for  the  poor,  and  hospitals  of 
every  name,  and  organizations  of  reform,  and  per- 
sistent efforts  for  equal  laws,  and  a  spirit  of 
humanity  breathing  fervid  and  pathetic  through  lit- 
erature, so  that  no  toil  of  thought  or  heart  is  given 
over  to  resist  the  stealthy  forces  of  wrong  and  de- 
cay from  poisoning  the  springs  of  vigor,  —  then  a 
spectacle  is  seen   grander   than  any  miracle  of 


and  our  Duties,  227 

genius,  any  individual  heroism,  any  personal  sanc- 
tity; for  then  a  nation  stands  out  with  intellect 
on  its  forehead,  chivalry  in  its  carriage,  and  Chris- 
tianity in  its  heart. 

The  depravity  of  the  world  is  shown  in  the 
difficulty  of  organizing  any  other  than  selfish  ele- 
ments into  the  public  dealings  of  nations.  The 
divinity  of  the  Gospel  is  sufficiently  proved  by 
its  hope  and  its  endeavor  to  institute  humanity 
into  one  body,  so  that  the  kingdoms  of  this  world 
shall  become  the  kingdom  of  the  Lord  and  his 
Christ. 

Turning  from  this  general  picture  and  this  ideal 
glory  to  our  own  land  and  character,  it  will  be  fair 
to  say  that  parts  of  our  empire  have  been  gaining 
in  worthiness  and  dignity.  I  need  not  dwell  at 
any  length  on  the  point  that  God  has  marvellously 
multiplied  the  nation  even  within  an  ordinary  life- 
time, —  how  our  area  has  broadened,  how  we  have 
built  States  in  less  time  than  it  has  often  taken  to 
rear  a  palace  ;  how  we  have  received  races  into 
our  bosom,  and  distributed  them  by  tens  of  thou- 
sands over  our  domain,  without  jar  to  the  wide- 
spread peace ;  how  our  wealth  has  increased  by 
the  rivalling  contributions  of  the  climates,  and 
the  chairs  of  our  Senate-room  represent  the  hardi- 
hood that  defies  the  Atlantic  storms  and  the  golden 
lustre  of  the  Pacific  shores. 

No  such  inspiring  spectacle  is  presented  by  the 
public  life  of  any  European  kingdom,  or  any 
nation  known  to  history,  as  the  civilization  and 


228        The  Supreme-Court  Decision^ 

the  prospects  of  several  of  the  free  States  of  this 
Republic  present  to  a  philosopher  and  a  philan- 
'  thropist  to-day.  But  the  whole  nation,  the  pubHc 
life  into  which  all  the  States  are  united,  and  which 
gives  expression  to  the  central  government  as  other 
lands  look  upon  us,  does  not  deserve  this  decision. 
While  its  wealth  and  power  have  been  waxing,  its 
nobleness  has  been  waning.  "  God  has  multiplied 
the  nation,  but  not  increased  the  joy.'' 

I  will  not  speak  especially  of  the  lack  of  intel- 
lectual dignity  in  our  politics,  of  the  impossibility 
of  getting  a  consistent  policy,  based  on  general 
economic  principles,  recognized  in  the  regulation 
of  our  commercial  affairs,  or  of  the  fact  that  the 
grade  of  talent  in  those  who  win  success  as  repre- 
sentatives of  the  nation  is  steadily  and  swiftly 
sinking ;  for  our  attention  is  called  rather  to  the 
more  glaring  and  the  more  dispiriting  proofs  of  it 
when  we  look  at  the  principles  which  this  people 
are  called  to  represent  before  the  world,  and  think 
of  the  treatment  they  receive  from  the  central 
powers  here. 

A  lighthouse  is  not  more  manifestly  built  to 
bear  aloft  and  protect  a  light,  than  the  American 
polity  was  founded,  reared,  and  cemented  to  en- 
shrine and  diffuse  a  generous  doctrine  of  the  worth 
and  the  rights  of  human  nature  ;  and  a  lighthouse 
no  more  fatally  fails  of  its  organic  purpose  when 
its  upper  windows  are  blackened,  and  it  is  used  by 
one  household  for  selfish  convenience  and  private 
ends,  than  the  American  government  fails  of  its 


and  our  Duties,  229 

Providential  purpose  if  its  political  literature  and 
spirit  shed  no  blaze  of  cheer  to  other  nations  and 
over  the  stormy  experience  of  history. 

The  doctrine  of  the  worth  of  human  nature, 
and  the  wrong  of  social  and  instituted  insult  to  it, 
was  as  solemnly  committed  to  us  as  a  people  as 
the  doctrine  of  one  God  to  be  worshipped  by  the 
holiness  of  life  was  committed  to  the  Hebrews,  to 
be  worked  out  in  their  polity  and  their  literature, 
and*  to  be  guarded  and  respected  by  the  very 
mental  instincts  of  their  race,  so  that  any  offence 
offered  to  that  doctrine  should  be  an  offence 
against  the  personality  of  their  state.  And  it 
should  affect  us  with  no  more  surprise  and  disgust 
to  read  of  Samuel  tampering  with  idols,  or  Elijah 
bowing  to  Baal  for  Philistine  votes,  or  David  writ- 
ing non-committal  Psalms  in  balanced  honor  of 
Jehovah  and  Ashtaroth,  or  prophets  keeping  silent 
about  public  iniquity,  and  proclaiming  the  will  of 
the  reigning  monarch  as  a  higher  law  than  the 
righteousness  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts,  than  to  think 
of  the  spirit  of  the  American  government  flagging 
from  the  support  of  the  civil  sacred ness  of  human 
nature,  or  of  its  literature,  diplomatic  and  legal, 
failing  to  turn,  like  the  awful  sword-flame  before 
Eden,  as  a  watch  and  a  terror  against  the  pollution 
of  that  principle. 


[After  recounting  previous  violations  of  liberty  by  the 
general  government,  the  preacher  proceeds  to  his  arraign- 
ment of  the  Supreme  Court.] 


230         The  Stipreme- Court  DecisioUy 

Such  is  the  dark  story  which  the  last  few  years 
tell  as  to  the  character  of  the  central  government, 
in  relation  to  the  sentiment  which  the  personality 
of  our  empire  should  guard,  as  to  the  deepening 
scowls  and  hatred  of  its  countenance  at  any  gen- 
erous policy  and  literature  of  humanity.  *'God 
has  multiplied  the  nation,  but  not  increased  the 
joy." 

And  now,  to  crown  these  terrors,  comes  the 
recent  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
country,  a  fitting  cupola  for  the  grim  Bastile  into 
which  the  moral  insanity  that  has  ruled  us  would 
convert  our  polity ! 

One  knows  not  where  to  turn  in  the  dreadful 
circle  of  its  infamy,  where  to  begin  the  detail  of 
its  blackness. 

It  is  obvious  that  we  must  call  it  a  deliberate 
creation  of  wrong  and  oppression.  The  most 
timid  conservative  can  see  that  there  was  no  ne- 
cessity for  it  in  the  Constitution  or  in  our  histor}\ 
Would  not  this  of  itself  be  enough  to  blast  it? 
Ought  not  a  judgment  so  heinous  morally,  and 
contradictory  to  the  legitimate  sweep  of  the  senti- 
ments that  have  inspired  our  noblest  men,  to  be 
required  so  plainly  by  the  language  of  the  Con- 
stitution that  no  eye  could  fail  to  read  the  dread- 
ful duty  of  our  highest  court  to  expound  it  ?  What 
then  must  we  say  when  they  have  toiled  to  put 
it  into  shape,  and  to  justify  it  by  a  show  of  logic 
and  learning.^  Fallen  though  these  men  were  by 
the  corrupting  influence  of  the  slave-system  on 


and  our  Duties.  231 

their  passions  and  their  reason,  yet,  like  Milton's 
leaders  of  the  angels  banished  from  heaven,  they 
did  not  descend  to  this  pit  by  natural  gravitation; 
they  have  "sunk  by  compulsion  and  laborious 
flight." 

Further  than  this,  when  the  opposing  decisions 
shall  have  been  compared  before  the  careful 
thought  of  the  country,  —  the  sinewy  logic  and 
symmetrical  strength  of  that  masterly  paper  w^hich 
the  genius  of  Massachusetts  contributed,*  with 
the  tortuous  pleading  of  the  judgment  which  will 
now  be  the  Magna  Charta  of  tyranny, — it  will  be 
seen  that  our  highest  court  has  not  only  sunk  by 
labor  to  that  edict,  but  that  they  have  spun  it  out 
of  nothing,  out  of  documents  that  do  not  hold 
it,  and  history  that  was  never  lived.  It  will  be 
seen  that  they  have  perverted  the  life-elements 
of  the  Constitution  to  distil  it,  as  the  upas-tree 
perverts  the  pure  moisture  of  heaven  to  sweat 
its  blistering  juices,  or  as  the  viper  secretes  from 
innocent  food  the  poison  of  his  fangs.  These 
men,  it  will  be  clearly  seen  by  the  intellect  of  this 
land,  have  printed  their  passion,  and  that  mental 
malignity  which  slavery  engenders,  over  the  para- 
graphs of  the  Constitution,  and  thus  have  startled 
us  with  nothing  less  than  a  coup  (Tetat,  They 
have  written  a  revolution. 

Only  we  must  say  that,  as  a  work  of  oppression, 
this  decision  is  more  awful  than  any  installation 
of  despotism  by  any  historic  coup  (Tetat     It  is 

♦  Mr.  Justice  Curtis's  dissenting  opinion. 


232  The  Supreme-Court  Decision y 

such  a  movement  of  oppression  in  Christendom  as 
was  never  known  before.  It  sweeps  a  race  outside 
the  privileges  of  national  law  by  its  decision  that 
no  black  man,  or  man  of  African  blood,  can  be  a 
citizen  of  the  United  States  under  the  provisions 
of  the  Constitution.  And  it  makes  no  limit  to  its 
savage  edict.  It  does  not. tell  us  what  constitutes 
the  black  man,  nor  what  constitutes  the  white. 
Another  has  well  asked,  "  Where  is  the  line  be- 
tween shade  deepening  into  shade,  or  sable  pass- 
ing into  the  transparency  of  a  veil  of  alabaster, 
so  indistinguishable  that  the  line  between  dark- 
ness and  the  first  pale  glimpses  of  the  dawn  might 
be  easier  mathematically  whipped  across  the 
heavens  ;  where  is  the  line  that  sets  on  the  one 
side  the  inhabitant  of  the  zone  of  darkness,  as  a 
creature  only  born  to  be  enslaved,  created  to  be 
mere  property,  a  creature  all  merchandise,  and 
the  inhabitant  of  the  other  zone  of  whiteness  as 
the  rightful  tyrant,  possessor,  owner,  of  the  whole 
sable  race  as  of  a  hogshead  or  a  wheelbarrow  ? " 
This  decision,  if  it  follows  the  principle  of  the 
slave-law,  makes  every  child  of  a  mother  that  has 
any  mixture  of  African  blood  a  portion  of  the 
African  race,  and  so  a  civil  pariah  in  the  regard 
of  the  organized  government  and  all  its  statutes. 
The  freed  children  of  Saxon  fathers  liberated  by 
the  tortured  conscience  of  the  parent,  and  en- 
dowed perhaps  with  Saxon  energy  in  their  veins, 
only  pass  from  the  justice  of  their  paternal  own- 
ers  to  be   stamped  with  public   infamy  by  the 


and  our  Duties.  233 

broad  seal  of  the  United  States  Court.  Rev.  Mr. 
Pennington,  a  black  clergyman  of  New  York, 
formerly  a  slave,  and  educated  abroad,  whom  a 
German  university  honored  with  a  doctorate  of 
philosophy  and  theology,  can  get  no  recognition 
from  such  a  court  that  his  learning  and  piety  be- 
long to  a  human  being.  And  Frederick  Douglas, 
attested  in  his  spiritual  constitution  as  a  noble- 
man of  nature,  and  made  pre-eminent,  even  among 
white  men,  by  the  endowment  from  Heaven  of  the 
sacred  fire  of  genius,  can  have  no  passport  as  a 
son  or  citizen  of  America  to  carry  with  him  to 
Europe ;  must  beg  in  vain  for  any  pennant  of  the 
navy  to  flutter  in  his  protection,  or  for  any  cannon 
to  look  a  threat  in  his  behalf,  if  an  Austrian  offi- 
cial should  seize  him,  as  Martin  Kosta,  an  adopted 
white  man,  was  protected  in  a  foreign  port ;  yes, 
and  if  in  any  national  hall  of  justice  he  should 
speak  for  any  invaded  right  of  his,  with  an  elo- 
quence more  than  a  match  for  any  pleader  of  the 
State  that  once  held  him  as  a  slave,  he  must  retire 
before  the  breath  of  this  decree,  ostracized  and 
outcast  from  even  the  cold  notice  of  the  law. 

A  despot  publishes  his  oppressive  bull,  but  his 
whim  may  change ;  his  fears  may  be  appealed  to, 
and  the  next  year  he  may  revoke  it.  At  any  rate 
the  grave  is  lying  in  wait  for  him,  and  his  child  or 
his  successor  may  undo  his  mischief,  and  may  be 
as  noble  as  he  is  depraved.  But  woe  when  the 
spirit  of  evil,  as  the  Psalm  says,  "  frameth  mis- 
chief by  a  law  " !     That  institutes  and  intrenches 


234         ^^^^  Siipreine-Coiirt  Dwisioji, 

iniquity,  organizing  it  into  the  fibres  of  state. 
And  deeper  woe  wlien  oppression,  as  in  this  rul- 
ing, goes  back  of  even  law  itself;  shows  what 
laws  shall  be  final ;  lifts  up  the  standard  of  oppres- 
sion in  accordance  with  which  alone  laws  shall 
be  made ;  drives  its  iron  stake  of  tyranny,  upon 
which,  as  fast  as  they  may  be  engrossed  by  Con- 
gresses and  signed  by  Presidents,  the  noblest  laws 
enacting  justice  for  a  race  shall  be  impaled  as 
waste  paper,  lacking  the  American  quality !  And 
crowning  woe  of  all,  when  history  and  our  ances- 
tors are  vilified  in  order  to  draw^  from  them  the 
sanction  for  this  horror ;  when  the  judgment  is 
so  drafted  that  it  shuffles  behind  the  names  of 
noble  men,  whose  spirits  it  should  seem  might  be 
evoked  from  heaven  by  the  sorcery  of  such  insult 
to  blast  them  with  indignation ;  when  it  skulks,  as 
this  judgment  demonstrably  does,  behind  a  his- 
toric lie  I 

We  are  all  startled  now  to  see  that  we  have  an 
element  of  tyranny  worked  into  our  polity  more 
subtle  and  vital,  so  long  as  the  present  constitu- 
tion of  the  Supreme  Court  shall  hold,  than  any 
government  of  Europe  shows.  For  in  the  Old 
World,  if  the  seats  of  political  authority  are  con- 
trolled by  the  will  and  conscience  of  the  nation, 
everything  is  safe ;  but  here  we  have  an  impreg- 
nable breakwater  in  the  passions  of  five  men 
against  a  majority  of  millions,  a  united  press,  an 
overwhelming  plurality  of  Congress,  a  unanimous 
Cabinet,  and  the  seal  of  the  President  himself! 


and  our  Duties.  235 

And  the  conviction  is  burned  into  the  heart  of 
every  American  that  this  awful  power  is  now  to 
be  exercised  to  jeer  at  the  claim  that  a  man  with 
African  color  on  his  skin,  though  God  has  put 
genius  in  his  brain  and  the  Holy  Spirit  in  his 
heart,  and  though  New  York  or  Massachusetts 
may  welcome  him  and  honor  him  as  equal  to  any 
of  the  highest  in  its  civil  society,  can  be  fit  to 
stand  with  a  naturalized  Irishman  or  a  desperado 
from  the  Five  Points  as  a  claimant  for  equity  in 
the  imperial  courts  of  the  Republic ! 

Must  we  not  say  before  Heaven,  "  Thou  hast 
multiplied  the  nation,  but  not  increased  the  joy,'* 
when  we  think  that  such  an  edict  is  supreme  over 
our  literature  ?  The  slave-system  has  been  work- 
ing through  years  for  foothold  in  literature  in  the 
hope  of  finding  rhetoric  and  logic  to  hurl  back 
against  the  general  derision  and  hiss  of  genius. 
It  has  been  able  to  command  no  history,  no  politi- 
cal economy,  no  poetry,  no  fiction  that  is  respect- 
able ;  but  it  has  triumphed  by  planting  its  banner 
over  the  supreme  tribunal  of  the  national  mind. 
Every  intellectual  man  feels  now  that  this  streamer 
floats  over  the  national  thought.  And  we  can  fore- 
cast the  way  in  which  it  will  work  on  the  senti- 
ments and  character  of  thousands ;  how  it  will 
paralyze  noble  sentiment  in  them  and  drain  off 
the  moral  fluids  from  their  nature,  and  make  them 
accept  it  for  the  sake  of  place,  and  turn  them  into 
mere  governmental  muscles,  and  whip  them  be- 
yond the  point  of  sorrowful  and  external  acknowl- 


236        The  Supreme-Court  Decision^ 

edgment  that  it  is  law,  until  reversed,  into  a  pas- 
sionate and  jubilant  defence  of  it.  For  the  slave- 
system  works  on  minds  in  our  politics  just  as 
slavery  works  on  the  soil :  it  sucks  the  generous 
juices  out  of  it,  withers  it,  dries  it  into  sand,  and 
leaves  it  fit  only  for  nettles  and  weeds. 

And  now  Providence  sets  this  decision  before 
us  to  try  our  religious  state,  to  test  the  thorough- 
ness of  our  consecration,  to  ask  what  we  are  ready 
to  do  about  it.  I  could  not  have  chosen  any 
other  theme  for  a  public  and  a  Christian  fast-day ; 
for  there  is  no  public  sin  of  recent  manifestation 
so  suggestive  and  frightful  as  this  eruption  of  evil 
out  of  the  constitutional  blood  of  the  country, 
there  is  no  symptom  that  shows  more  vividly  the 
moral  vice  that  we  have  been  pampering  in  the 
public  soul,  and  there  is  no  question  that  will  probe 
the  vitality  of  the  Christian  forces  of  life  in  a  state 
like  a  question  involving  antipathies  of  race. 

We  are  called  now  to  meet  politically,  in  the 
light  of  Christianity,  the  problem  with  which  early 
Christianity  itself  was  set  to  wrestle.  Our  relig- 
ion came  into  the  world  a  proclamation  of  uni- 
versal spiritual  liberty  and  love.  But  the  Jewish 
race,  to  whom  it  was  intrusted,  had  pronounced 
by  their  supreme  Pharisaic  courts  that  all  other 
races  were  alien,  and  that,  in  the  regard  of  their 
fathers,  the  Gentiles  had  no  rights  which  a  He- 
brew was  bound  to  respect.  And  so  the  Jewish 
Christians  refused,  at  first,  to  receive  alien  converts 
to  equal  citizenship  in  the  Church  and  to  think 


and  our  Duties,  237 

of  them  as  equal  with  themselves  in  the  regard 
of  Heaven.  The  regular  Apostles  themselves, 
the  supreme  judges  in  the  Christian  community, 
came  near  yielding  to  this  prejudice,  and  certainly 
opposed  it  with  no  passion.  But  Paul  stood  for 
the  outcast  nations.  The  Gospel  is  not  worth 
saving,  he  said,  if  it  is  not  broad  enough  to  re- 
deem all  the  spirits  God  has  created  ;  if,  while  sin 
is  not  local,  and  misery  is  not  local,  and  death  is 
tiot  Jewish,  the  Gospel,  which  strives  to  reverse 
these,  cannot  flow  as  widely  with  its  medicine  as 
they  flow  with  their  taint.  And  so  he  translated 
it  into  the  universal  dialect,  and  made  the  selfish 
language  of  the  world  thrill  with  that  sentence,  — 
"  There  is  neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  there  is  neither 
bond  nor  free,  there  is  neither  male  nor  female, 
but  all  are  one  in  Christ  Jesus." 

That  movement  and  that  sentence  of  the  Apos- 
tle is  the  fulcrum  by  which  the  thought  of  Jesus 
gets  its  purchase  historically  against  this  decision 
of  our  political  pharisaism.  The  same  test  in 
principle  is  put  before  our  minds  and  consciences 
in  this  question  of  race  that  was  set  before  early 
Christianity,  that  our  religion  may  be  healthy,  and 
that  our  prophetic  insight  may  not  die  into  moral 
blindness  and  apathy.  No  mean  nation  is  called 
to  organize  a  root-principle  of  the  celestial  order 
into  its  life.  We  can  see  the  estimate  which  Prov- 
idence puts  on  this  country  in  the  fact  that,  de- 
spite our  sin  and  apostasy,  he  still  offers  to  us  the 
supreme  privilege  and  honor  of  winning  back  that 


238        The  Supreme -Court  Decision, 

principle  of  the  equality  of  races,  and  of  enthron- 
ing it  deliberately  in  our  Constitution,  after  Anti- 
christ has  challenged  battle  around  it  by  tearing 
it  from  our  charter  and  traditions,  and  trampling 
it  under  his  hoof 

Our  duty  then  is,  first,  to  see  that  Christianity 
is  vitally  interested  in  this  struggle  against  our 
Supreme  Court,  and  to  feel  the  solemnity  of  this 
fact,  that  we  are  not  a  Christian  but  a  heathen 
nation,  if  we  suffer  the  recent  ruling  to  get  seated 
as  law  over  the  mind  and  conscience  of  this  land. 
And  so  we  are  to  see  to  it  that  the  Church  senti- 
ment is  arrayed  against  it  wherever  there  is  a  free 
Church,  a  Church  founded  on  the  cross  and  the 
book  of  Romans,  and  not  on  the  curse  of  Canaan 
by  Noah,  and  the  bills  of  sale  to  Abraham  of 
slaves.  We  are  to  hate  it  and  to  loathe  it  as  athe- 
ism and  blasphemy.  We  are  to  hate  it  as  loyal 
to  our  history ;  hate  it  from  love  of  the  truth 
which  it  perverts,  and  out  of  reverence  to  the 
sainted  men  whose  fame  it  pollutes  in  claiming 
their  sanction ;  hate  it  as  Americans  and  patriots, 
for  the  infamy  it  brands  into  the  brow  of  our  na- 
tion in  the  regard  of  foreign  lands ;  and  hate  it 
with  consecrated  passion  as  Christians,  in  the  feel- 
ing that,  if  the  religious  sentiment  gets  bowed  to 
indifference  to  it,  we  have,  from  that  moment,  a 
union  of  Church  and  State  here  more  revolting 
than  the  Russian,  and  may  as  well  print  our  Tes- 
taments at  intervals,  with  codicils  from  our  na- 
tional judges,  showing  what,  according  to  the  last 


and  our  Duties.  239 

exigency  of  the  slave  system,  is  everlasting  truth. 
Grounded  in  this  spiritual  opposition,  we  are  to 
cultivate  the  expansive  and  redeeming  forces  in 
our  society.  In  the  unconsecrated  blood  of  the 
country  this  decision  will  work  like  the  virus  of  a 
rattlesnake.  We  are  to  meet  it  with  stimulants, 
knowing  that  if  the  sedative  reaches  the  heart  it 
is  death. 

The  Latin  poet,  Virgil,  has  drawn  a  vivid  pic- 
ture of  one  of  the  scenes  which  hastened  the  fall 
of  ancient  Troy.  The  noble  Trojan  priest,  Laoc- 
oon,  denounced  the  infatuation  of  his  country- 
men, when  they  determined  to  receive  the  mon- 
strous wooden  horse,  stuffed  with  Greek  troops 
and  princes,  into  the  city.  He  tried  every  means 
to  rouse  his  countrymen  to  a  sense  of  their  peril, 
and  at  last  hurled  his  spear  against  the  hollow 
fraud.  But,  lest  his  passion  might  be  effective, 
the  hostile  gods  that  helped  the  Greeks  sent  two 
snakes  over  the  sea  from  Tenedos,  with  crests 
dropping  blood,  and  quivering  tongues  that  licked 
their  hissing  mouths.  They  made  their  way  in 
the  city  at  once  to  Laocoon  and  his  sons,  wound 
themselves  in  frightful  festoons  around  their  limbs, 
bound  them  in  a  group  of  agony  which  sculpture 
has  made  immortal,  crushed  and  choked  them, 
and  reared  their  crests  and  poisonous  tongues 
over  the  brow  of  the  patriotic  priest,  whose  chap- 
let  was  black  with  their  poison  and  red  with  his 
own  death. 

Thus  the  church  of  Troy  was  silenced  ;  the  ser- 


240        The  Supreme -Cottrt  DecisioUy 

pents  nestled  safe  under  the  buckler  of  the  god- 
dess in  the  sanctuary  ;  the  wooden  horse  was  ad- 
mitted, and  that  night  Troy  was  in  flames. 

The  snakes  of  Tenedos  are  after  the  Church  of 
America  to-day.  They  are  winding  around  the 
Bible  and  the  pulpit  and  the  press.  We  are  in 
the  midst  of  the  Laocoon-wrestle  between  our 
Christian  principle  and  the  sinewy  pressure  and 
coil  of  that  slimy  sentiment  which  puts  forms  of 
law  above  its  essence,  transparent  iniquity,  with  a 
judge's  seal  to  it,  over  unofficial  truth  with  God's 
stamp  upon  it^  which  would  divorce  religion  and 
humanity,  though  they  have  been  welded  to  indis- 
tinguishable sanctity  in  the  heart  of  Christ,  and 
would  crush  out  the  breath  of  the  New  Testament 
by  the  constriction  of  a  dozen  misinterpreted  texts. 

If  the  arms  of  the  Church  are  not  able  to  throw 
off  these  hideous  anacondas,  that  its  prophetic 
spirit  may  stamp  their  heads  into  the  dust ;  if  the 
parable  of  the  good  Samaritan  and  the  spirit  of 
humanity  glowing  in  the  fire-drawn  picture  of  the 
king  in  judgment,  do  not  rise  demonstrably  victo- 
rious over  this  literature  of  hell,  we  have  no  Church 
and  no  Church  sentiment.  Jesus  is  dead,  the 
church  spires  are  his  monuments,  and  Northern 
Christendom  is  a  graveyard. 

Of  political  methods  of  resistance  this  is  not 
the  place  to  speak.  I  agree  with  his  Excellency 
that  ministers  should  not  mix  with  political  dis- 
cussions. It  is  when  civilization  is  at  stake,  and 
Christianity  is  impeached  in  high  places,  that  they 


and  our  Duties,  241 

have  the  call  to  speak,  and  then  not  for  party,  but 
for  religious  ends. 

And  so  I  will  pass  over  political  methods  to 
say  that,  if  we  are  honest  in  our  denunciation  of 
this  decision,  we  must  respect  the  black  man,  rec- 
ognize him  as  a  brother,  be  ready  to  help  him 
elevate  himself  in  Northern  society,  plead  against 
the  disabilities  that  fetter  him,  pay  the  reverence 
to  him  which  is  due  to  the  victim  of  arrogant  tyr- 
anny, and  feel  that  the  contempt  for  him  which 
vents  itself  in  the  corruption  of  the  word  "negro" 
to  palliate  any  of  the  wrongs  of  his  race  is  con- 
spiracy with  the  heathenism  of  this  decision  we 
denounce,  a  public  support  of  it,  and  a  sin  against 
Christ. 

And  lastly,  and  for  our  own  souls  chiefly,  that 
we  may  be  found  contending  with  the  strength  of 
character  and  by  the  might  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
against  all  instituted  wrong  and  against  the  invisi- 
ble essence  of  wrong  itself,  we  must  keep  our 
hearts  open  to  charity,  and  earnest  in  prayer,  and 
docile  to  Jesus  Christ,  that  our  sorrows  and  fast- 
ings of  the  spirit  may  avail  in  heaven,  and  that 
our  supplications  for  our  country  may  be  pure 
enough  to  win  from  Infinite  Grace  more  of  that 
life  into  the  land  which,  while  it  multiplies  the 
nation,  increases  the  joy. 

1857. 


XV. 

LIVING  FOR  IDEAS  AND  PRINCIPLES. 

"But  what  things  were  gain  to  me,  those  I  counted  loss  for 
Christ.  Yea  doubtless,  and  I  count  all  things  but  loss  for  the  ex- 
cellency of  the  knowledge  of  Christ  Jesus  my  Lord." — Philip- 
plans  iii.  7,  8. 

THE  truth  at  the  heart  of  this  passage  is,  that 
St.  Paul  hved  for  an  idea  and  a  cause. 
Christ  represented  to  him  the  sublime  fact  that 
God  is  unspeakable  goodness ;  that  he  desires  to 
be  worshipped,  not  by  slavish  and  wearisome  ser- 
vices, but  out  of  a  filial  and  joyous  heart ;  and 
that  life  is  offered  to  men  as  a  condition  of  spirit- 
ual freedom  and  immeasurable  bliss.  Whenever 
the  word  "  Christ "  was  written  or  spoken  by  the 
Apostle  Paul,  his  imagination  was  fired  with  the 
conception  that  the  love  of  the  Infinite  God  had 
been  expressed  in  a  human  person  and  a  life  with 
which  we  can  come  into  quickening  sympathy ; 
and  this  fact  was  so  much  richer  to  him,  and  so 
much  more  inspiring,  than  all  the  beauty  of  the 
world,  than  all  the  pleasures  and  honors  of  so- 
ciety, that  he  counted  all  other  things  as  loss 
before  the  glory  of  believing  in  it,  cherishing  it  as 
a  hope,  and  publishing  it  to  the  world.     He  gave 


Living  for  Ideas  and  Principles,     243 

up  the  good  opinion  of  his  nation,  the  fellowship 
of  his  family,  the  prospect  of  honor  and  wealth, 
and  cast  in  his  lot  with  a  despised  and  perse- 
cuted sect,  that  he  might  have  the  satisfaction 
and  the  joy  of  living  for  a  truth  that  outweighed 
the  world. 

I  beg  you,  now,  to  see  how  harmonious  this 
law,  which  the  Apostle's  life  illustrates,  is  with  all 
the  indications  in  the  natural  world.  See  how 
things  are  accounted  noble  just  as  they  intimate 
to  us,  or  represent  and  illustrate,  principles.  A 
grain  of  matter  is  grand  when  we  think  that  it  is 
under  the  dominion  of  the  law  of  gravitation,  and 
publishes  it  just  as  faithfully  as  any  planet  that 
whirls  in  space.  A  piece  of  common  quartz  is 
worth  nothing  by  market  estimates  to  a  natural- 
ist ;  but  tell  him  that  by  cutting  it  to  pieces,  or 
by  searching  it  with  a  microscope,  he  can  detect 
the  secret  of  the  force  of  crystallization,  and  how 
the  particles  of  matter  shoot  themselves  into  reg- 
ular shape  and  become  transparent,  and  he  will 
prize  that  piece  of  common  stone  more  than  if  it 
were  a  lump  of  gold.  A  loadstone  is  nothing 
other  than  a  common  rock  to  a  philosopher,  until 
you  intimate  that  it  is  alive  with  magnetic  quali- 
ties that  girdle  the  globe.  A  triangular  piece  of 
glass,  utterly  valueless  in  itself,  becomes  at  once 
a  most  precious  treasure  to  the  scientific  student 
when  he  finds  that  with  it  he  can  paint  his  walls 
with  rainbow  hues,  and  untwist  at  pleasure  the 
charming  tints  that  are  braided  into  a  beam  of 


244     Living  for  Ideas  mtd  Principles. 

light.  The  philosopher  learns,  at  last,  to  stand 
in  reverence  before  the  common  facts,  which  we 
consider  empty  of  meaning,  by  seeing  that  there 
is  nothing  in  the  universe  that  is  not  intrusted, 
by  the  Infinite  mind,  with  some  great  principle, 
which  it  whispers  to  the  reverent  student.  Some- 
times a  fossil  or  a  pebble  is  the  clew  which  leads 
to  a  broad  system  of  geological  truth. 

We  ought  to  see  that  this  law  applies  with  far 
higher  force  to  men.  We  ought  to  see  that  if  a 
piece  of  matter  is  valuable,  in  the  world  of  truth 
and  science,  only  by  reason  of  the  principles 
enshrined  in  it,  a  human  being  is  to  be  estimated 
in  no  other  way  than  by  the  spiritual  principle  he 
stands  for,  the  moral  and  vital  truth  that  threads 
him. 

What  does  a  man  stand  for  ?  This  is  the  ques- 
tion that  probes  the  real  value  attaching  to  him  ; 
because  this  shows  how  faithful  he  has  been  to 
the  privilege  of  his  humanity,  and  how  much  fel- 
lowship he  has  with  God.  We  are  not  to  ask,  as 
this  world  asks,  "  How  much  is  a  man  worth  ? "  to 
get  an  answer  in  dollars  ;  we  are  not  to  ask  what 
the  grade  of  his  living  is,  the  splendor  of  his 
house,  the  scale  of  his  expenses,  as  though  we 
could  test  in  that  way  his  essential  value.  The 
spiritual  method  of  finding  what  a  man  is  worth 
is  to  inquire  what  is  the  moral  skeleton  or  frame- 
work of  his  career,  and  what  purposes  he  is  living 
for;  to  search  for  the  central  sentiments  he  lives 
by ;  to  knock  upon  the  substance  of  his  soul,  and 


Living  for  Ideas  and  Principles,     245 

find  whether  he  rings  hollow,  or  if  the  music  of 
some  everlasting  principle  thrills  out  of  him. 

Every  man  does  represent  a  principle,  either 
a  mean  one  or  a  noble  one,  and  by  that  he  is 
estimated  in  the  spiritual  world.  How  inspiring 
it  is  when  we  see  men  that  are  the  reverse  essen- 
tially of  those  we  have  been  obliged  to  describe ! 
Now  and  then  you  see  a  human  being  that  is  not 
so  much  obedient  to  a  principle  as  the  personifi- 
cation of  a  principle.  He  is  the  law  of  justice 
walking  among  us  and  baptized  with  a  Christian 
name.  You  feel  not  only  that  he  tells  the  truth, 
but  that  he  could  not  articulate  a  falsehood. 
Honor  is  so  ingrained  in  him  that  the  Custorn 
House  would  shake  itself  clear  of  the  force  of 
gravitation  as  soon  as  he  could  bring  himself  to 
swear  to  a  deceitful  invoice.  His  word  is  as  good 
as  his  bond,  for  both  are  simply  the  pledges  of 
his  character.  His  dealing  with  a  man  in  trade 
is  virtually  a  sacrament  \  and  though  he  "  prom- 
ise to  his  loss,  he  makes  his  promise  good,'' 
because  he  feels  that  there  can  be  no  loss  that 
will  compare  with  central  degradation.  Such  a 
man  is  incapable  of  putting  anything  —  money 
or  station  or  ease  or  fame  —  in  comparison 
with  an  eternal  verity,  such  as  right,  truth,  the 
spirit  of  humanity.  If  he  is  in  politics,  and  the 
way  should  be  open  for  him,  broad  and  sunlit,  to 
the  White  House,  he  would  no  more  set  out  upon 
it  than  if  it  were  paved  with  living  vipers,  if  he 
must  tread  over  the  prostrate  spirit  of  freedom  in 


246     Living  for  Ideas  and  Principles, 

reaching  that  eminence,  though  cheers  and  music 
from  twenty  States  should  fill  his  ears  on  the 
path.  If  he  has  money,  he  knows  that  he  is  not 
made  up  of  money ;  that  he  is  built  up  of  brain, 
conscience,  heart,  and  will ;  and  that  the  only  eter- 
nal value  of  his  money  lies  in  its  being  an  imple- 
ment of  his  nobler  nature,  —  seeds  of  truth,  bless- 
ings in  poor  homes,  foundation-stones  of  institu- 
tions that  send  out  warmth  into  the  world's  frosty 
air.  If  he  is  your  friend,  his  courtesy  is  the  ex- 
pression of  his  inmost  feeling ;  he  is  the  friend  of 
your  nature,  not  of  your  purse,  house,  or  dinner- 
table  ;  and  misfortune  only  brings  him  closer  to 
you,  because  there  is  less  of  this  world's  drapery 
to  keep  him  from  intimate  communion  with  your 
heart. 

Such  men  count  all  things  as  loss  for  the  excel- 
lency of  principles.  They  have  taken  truth,  the 
most  sacred  truth,  into  their  substance.  Their 
blood  is  no  more  the  current  and  treasury  of  their 
physical  life  than  the  spirit  of  God,  the  element 
of  all  human  virtue,  is  the  life-stream  of  their 
souls.  They  do  not  simply  conform  to  the  morali- 
ties and  gentilities  and  proprieties  which  are  the 
common  law  of  society,  but  they  are  truth,  kind- 
liness, charity,  intrenched  in  flesh,  fortified  by 
bone,  animating  blood,  using  speech  and  influ- 
ence, and  wealth  perhaps,  as  signs  of  their  pres- 
ence and  sway. 

And  such  persons,  brethren,  succeed  in  life, 
because  they  fulfil  the  privilege  of  their  humanity. 


Living  for  Ideas  and  Principles,     247 

They  import  and  impersonate  something  noble 
and  everlasting,  that  makes  them  practically  and 
visibly  the  sons  of  God.  And  they  are  sermons 
to  us.  We  are  bound  to  live  in  such  ways  as 
they  do,  for  an  idea,  a  truth,  a  spirit.  Just  as  the 
scientific  man  is  interested  in  common  things  for 
the  law  they  suggest,  just  as  the  artist  seeks  in  all 
common  things  their  beauty,  which  he  tries  to 
copy,  you  are  called,  and  are  bound  as  moral 
beings,  as  Christians,  to  be  interested  in  your 
home,  your  work,  your  temptations,  your  money, 
your  means  of  influence,  for  the  good  that  is 
possible  in  them,  that  is  suggested  to  your  con- 
science, and  that  would  gleam  more  plainly  before 
you  if  you  were  more  faithful  in  the  training  of 
your  moral  sentiments,  more  careful  to  keep  them 
submitted  to  the  eye  and  breathings  of  God. 

This,  therefore,  is  our  chief  obligation^  —  to 
see  where  a  principle  can  be  brought  into  any 
portion  of  our  life  that  is  vacant  of  it  or  hostile 
to  it  now.  Where  can  the  order  of  conscience 
be  breathed  into  districts  of  life  that  lie  lawless  ? 
Are  there  not  some  dangerous  or  degrading  pleas- 
ures that  can  be  swept  out  of  the  soul's  domain 
by  a  will  brought  up  to  more  constant  loyalty  ? 
Are  there  no  slothful  habits,  rusting  usefulness 
away,  that  need  to  be  corrected,  and  that  can  be 
by  the  systematic  effort  to  invite  and  domesticate 
moral  energy  in  the  soul?  Is . integrity  honored 
and  commended  as  it  might  be  in  your  business 
and  toil,  so  that,  as  a  clerk,  a  mechanic,  or  a 


248     Living  for  Ideas  and  Principles, 

merchant,  your  service  and  your  dealings  are 
transparent  with  the  light  of  fidelity  and  honor  ? 
Is  there  no  way  in  which  your  thoughts  and 
imagination  can  be  refined  to  a  more  steady  or 
delicate  purity ;  no  way  in  which  you  can  make 
your  relations  to  your  companions  bear  testimony 
to  a  more  cordial  and  graceful  friendship ;  no 
way  open  for  larger  self-denial,  so  that  you  may 
have  ampler  means  and  a  more  earnest  disposi- 
tion to  help  the  needy,  and  so  to  spread  the  light 
and  cheer  and  charm  of  charity  through  your 
experience ;  no  opportunity  for  you  to  stream  a 
sweeter  temper  through  your  home  ?  Above  all, 
can  you  not  see  how  a  deeper  spirit  of  personal 
piety  may  be  diffused  through  your  mind  and 
heart,  so  that  you  shall  be  more  grateful  for  your 
blessings,  more  penitent  for  your  sins,  more  devout 
towards  the  Infinite  Majesty,  more  trustful  in  the 
Boundless  Love? 

Who  is  there  of  us  that,  as  these  questions  are 
asked  and  flash  upon  our  lives,  does  not  see,  in  a 
moment,  how  poor  and  coarse  we  are  compared 
with  what  we  might  be,  and  how  near  the  holiest 
principles  are  to  our  work  and  our  will?  Our 
call  is,  brethren,  to  fetch  these  principles  into  our 
daily  deeds  at  any  expense,  so  that  our  lives  will 
radiate  them.  We  are  to  count  everything  we 
may  have  to  give  up,  any  toil  of  self-discipline 
we  may  have  to  undergo  in  that  work,  as  loss  and 
dross  for  the  excellency  of  their  righteousness. 
Thus  we  rise  into  fellowship  with  Paul.     It  is 


Living  for  Ideas  and-^rifmples,  ^249   «^'' 

\  V  .  ■'-;%.   ''^ 

your  business  and  my  business  to  do  ^tfij^>work,/^ 
just  as  much  as  it  was   Paul's    to   throv/^de      1. 
every  hindrance  to  his  devotion  to  the  Gos^eL^ 
and  to  give  up  everything  that  would  make  him  a^^ 
less  zealous  and  potent  missionary. 

It  is  not  abstract  principles  defended  by  the 
mind  and  published  by  paper  that  help  or  save 
the  world,  but  principles  incarnate,  looking  through 
human  eyes,  using  human  speech,  moving  in 
homes,  trading  in  stores,  eloquent  in  caucuses 
and  senate-rooms,  signing  subscription-papers, 
and  scattering  gold.  We  are  to  call  them  down 
from  their  diffusion  in  the  spiritual  air,  and  fortify 
them  by  our  bosoms  and  our  blood.  There  is  no 
end  to  the  work  and  the  service  we  may  do  in 
perfecting  ourselves,  so  that  celestial  ideas  and 
the  spirit  of  the  Gospel  may  live  in  us,  and  be 
published  anew  as  "  the  Word  made  flesh."  It  is 
said  that  opaque  objects  can  be  charged  so  thor- 
oughly with  electricity  that  they  will  become  trans- 
parent. And  certainly  common  actions  may  be 
made  to  glow  with  the  sparks  and  stream  of 
divine  truth,  so  that  their  value  will  lie  in  their 
quality  and  not  their  scale. 

"  All  may  of  thee  partake  ; 
Nothing  can  be  so  mean, 
Which  with  his  tincture,  for  thy  sake, 
Will  not  grow  bright  and  clean. 
•  •  .  •  • 

"  A  servant  with  this  clause 
Makes  drudgery  divine ; 
Who  sweeps  a  room  as  for  thy  laws, 
Makes  that  and  th'  action  fine." 
II* 


250     Living  for  Ideas  and  Principles, 

The  only  use  of  time  is  in  bringing  the  heart 
into  partnership  with  these  principles,  and  thus 
rising  into  fellowship  with  God.  As  the  Em- 
peror Titus  said,  "  I  have  lost  a  day,"  when  he 
could  think  of  no  good  action  he  had  done  during 
the  sun's  circuit,  we  must  judge  ourselves  in  the 
blaze  of  the  fact  that  every  day  is  lost,  according 
to  the  heavenly  notation,  that  has  not  been  en- 
nobled and  spiritualized  by  the  exercise  of  some 
moral  and  celestial  quality,  either  in  restraining 
passion,  or  doing  something,  or  giving  something, 
or  cherishing  some  devout  sentiment,  so  that  a 
truth,  a  principle,  has  become  a  more  ready  guest, 
through  us,  in  this  world  of  conflict  and  sin. 

We  have  considered  the  subject  thus  far  chiefly 
from  the  point  of  duty.  But  it  is  not  complete 
until  we  listen  to  what  it  has  to  say  to  us  from  the 
side  of  resource.  A  human  being  was  made  to 
give  room  to  ideas,  to  stand  for  them,  to  difluse 
their  heat  and  light  from  his  personality,  and  also 
to  be  supported  by  them,  rejoice  in  them,  and  live 
in  their  atmosphere  more  than  in  that  of  the 
world.  These  are  what  we  need,  friends,  more 
than  any  temporal  possessions,  these  are  what 
make  us  really  rich  and  noble,  and  our  lot  really 
enviable,  —  great  principles  as  lights,  counsellors, 
comforts,  and  companions.  What  we  need  in  ad- 
versity is  an  idea,  as  part  of  our  being,  intertwined 
with  our  feelings,  that  God  is  just  as  much  revealed 
in  trials  as  in  blessing;  that  his  goodness  is 
shown  in  putting  our  moral  fibre  to  hard  tasks 


Living  for  Ideas  and  Principles.     251 

that  will  make  it  athletic,  and  so  make  us  perma- 
nently nobler,  as  the  teacher's  friendship  is  shown 
in  putting  the  scholar  to  a  tough  lesson  that  makes 
the  mind  sinewy  and  wise.  With  that  principle 
as  part  of  our  spiritual  constitution  we  triumph 
over  adversities,  because  the  soul  lives  with  God. 
When  evil  seems  to  gain  wider  sway,  we  can  be 
calm  and  strong  if  we  have  the  idea,  as  a  broad 
rich  light  around  us,  that  God  is  stronger  than 
evil,  and  is  unspeakably  more  opposed  to  it  than 
we  are,  and  completely  committed,  now  and  for- 
ever, to  the  good.  When  our  friends  die,  and 
when  death  is  beginning  to  mix  its  shadows  with 
our  own  air,  we  are  thrice  armed  against  it,  we 
utterly  conquer  it,  by  seeing  that  there  is  no  death 
if  we  have  the  Christian  principle  in  our  souls 
that  this  life  is  the  threshold  of  a  great  future. 

A  man  without  ideas  like  these,  destitute  of 
principles  that  give  a  cheering  hue  to  life,  and 
which  are  part  of  the  substance  of  his  soul, 
doomed  to  face  the  dark  problems  of  Providence 
at  some  time,  and  meeting  them  only  with  a  soul 
in  eclipse  —  what  difference  does  it  make  in  his 
condition  to  say  he  has  gold,  he  has  a  fine  house, 
he  has  a  luxurious  table,  he  has  a  great  name,  he 
has  civil  power  ?  He  is  to  be  pitied  ;  angels  see 
how  sad  his  lot  is ;  Christ  mourns  for  him ;  God 
yearns  over  him,  because  he  is  poor,  penniless,  in 
his  immortal  nature,  because  he  does  not  hold 
to  anything  with  his  mind  and  heart,  because  he 
does  not  own  anything  in  his  personal  right,  for 


252     Living  for  Ideas  and  Principles, 

the  gain  and  excellency  of  which  he  counts  all 
other  things  as  loss. 

Consecration,  service  of  righteous  truth,  is  the 
door  to  this  possession  of  it  as  a  resource  which 
fills  the  soul  with  peace.  Paul  counted  all  tem- 
poral good  as  loss  for  the  excellency  of  Christ  in 
his  fidelity,  and  then  he  soon  learned  to  see  that 
they  were  beggarly  indeed  in  comparison  with 
what  he  gained  in  spite  of  persecution.  He  gave 
up  the  prospect  of  being  a  priest  in  Jerusalem, 
and  he  saw  the  world  as  a  temple  over  which  God's 
sanctity  ever  broods,  and  in  which  every  spirit 
may  be  a  priest.  What  was  the  friendship  of  the 
rabbis  which  he  yielded  to  the  deeper  sympathy 
with  the  prophets  which  he  gained  ?  What  was 
the  toil  of  tent-making  and  journeying  which  he 
underwent,  compared  with  the  mystic  melodies 
that  breathed  around  the  frail  awnings  of  his  mor- 
tal frame,  and  the  ecstasy  in  which  his  new  faith 
poised  his  spirit  above  the  world  ?  What  was  the 
sullen  hostility  of  the  whole  Roman  Empire  when 
he  saw  how  thin  were  the  partition  walls  between 
this  world  and  the  infinite  light,  and  could  look 
through  their  alabaster  veils  to  the  cloud  of  wit- 
nesses, and  the  Christ  that  died  for  all  the  world, 
and  God  shrouded  in  the  glory  of  his  love,  and 
know  that  they  were  regarding  him  with  interest, 
approval,  and  joy? 

He  could  not  have  had  these  visions  in  the 
landscape  of  his  soul,  unless  he  had  sacrificed 
earthly  good  that  stood  in  the  way  of  consecra- 


Living  for  Ideas  and  Principles,     253 

tion.  And  we,  too,  can  have  such  infinite  pay- 
ment for  finite  loss.  Make  a  principle  a  guest  in 
your  heart,  —  by  denying  the  worldly  side  of  your 
nature,  by  fettering  passion,  conquering  pride,  liv- 
ing for  something  other  than  luxury,  using  money 
for  good,  drilling  the  will  to  loyalty,  —  and  it  will 
become  thus  an  immeasurable  gain  as  a  resource 
to  your  soul.  God  bends  a  boundless  and  spark- 
ling sky  over  our  heads ;  but  he  offers  a  deeper 
heaven,  filled  with  more  glorious  lights  and  diviner 
promise,  to  all  souls  that  will  welcome  a  principle, 
go  out  and  pitch  their  tent  in  the  moral  universe, 

and  live  here  for  him. 

1856. 


XVI. 

THE  HEAET,   AND  THE  ISSUES  OF  LIFE. 

"  Keep  thy  heart  with  all  diligence  ;  for  out  of  it  are  the  issues 
of  life."  —  Proverbs  iv.  23. 

HOW  broad  and  impressive  the  declaration 
is,  that  life  issues  from  within,  from  the 
heart  of  man  !  The  highest  region  of  religious 
truth  is  full  of  paradoxes.  How  striking  is  this, 
that  we  are  receiving  all  the  time  our  life  from 
God,  and  yet  what  we  are  essentially  determines 
what  life  is !  We  are  finite  and  feeble  ;  we  can- 
not create  so  much  as  a  pebble  or  a  weed ;  and 
yet  our  quality  gives  color  and  quality  to  all  that 
Heaven  does  for  us,  so  that  we  re-create  the 
world  in  our  likeness.  We  have  no  power  to 
exist  of  ourselves  a  moment,  —  God  is  the  sub- 
stance of  our  being ;  yet  we  can  pervert  the  life 
of  God,  as  soon  as  it  touches  us,  into  the  life  of 
hell,  and  it  is  we  that  determine  the  universe  in 
which  we  exist. 

Out  of  the  heart  are  the  issues  of  life.  Each 
person  here  is  a  centre  from  which  the  universe 
radiates.  There  is  a  light  in  each  one  of  you, 
which,  streaming  outward,  mixes  with  the  exterior 


The  Hearty  and  the  Issues  of  Life,     255 

light,  and  is  more  important  than  that  in  giving 
the  complexion  to  your  world.  Your  inmost 
state  is  felt  by  the  farthest  star  and  by  the  nearest 
blade  of  grass.  It  stains  every  object  you  see, 
and  every  fact  of  your  experience.  Perhaps  it 
brightens  and  glorifies  everything.  Perhaps  it  re- 
veals to  you  the  terrible  yet  simple  meaning  of 
those  words,  —  "If  the  light  that  is  in  thee  be 
darkness,  how  great  is  that  darkness !  " 

In  its  elements  and  outward  scenery  nature  is 
the  same  to  all.  Light  and  night,  sun  and  stars, 
air  and  earth  and  landscapes,  offer  a  common  en- 
closure and  background  to  our  existence.  But 
the  various  impulses  and  aptitudes  for  work  with 
which  we  are  born  —  which  press  from  the  very 
core  of  our  being  —  diversify  the  world  as  widely 
as  if  we  were  distributed  upon  different  globes. 
To  one  set  of  men  it  is  a  place  to  think  and 
learn  and  grow  wise  in.  Everything  God  has 
made  is  a  challenge  to  their  intellectual  curiosity. 
They  untwist  the  light ;  they  analyze  the  air ;  they 
tear  up  the  carpets  of  the  planet  and  bore  into 
its  floors ;  they  weigh  the  orbs  of  space ;  they 
run  their  measuring  lines  across  the  heavens. 
The  thirst  for  knowledge,  which  is  their  central 
passion,  projects  the  universe  as  an  academy 
whose  facts  are  pages  to  be  deciphered,  and  in 
which  success  is  to  be  measured  by  the  wisdom 
that  is  gained. 

Another  finds  the  world  a  place  to  work  in. 
The  sun  is  admirable  to  furnish  light  for  his  labor: 


256     The  Hearty  and  the  Issues  of  Life, 

the  night  fulfils  its  purpose  in  giving  him  rest. 
How  many  there  are  to  whom  this  globe  is  an 
ant-hill,  where  each  inhabitant  must  tug  at  his 
burden,  that  it  may  be  mined  and  stored  and 
filled  up  into  more  subtile  and  wide  convenience 
for  the  generations  to  come  ! 

Others  find  it  a  garden  of  beauty  in  which  the 
stars  are  more  valuable  as  blossoms  of  poetic 
light  than  for  their  astronomic  truth,  and  the  air 
richer  for  its  hues  than  for  its  uses,  and  the 
mountains  grander  for  their  millinery  of  mist  and 
shadow  and  their  draperies  of  verdure  and  snow 
than  for  their  service  to  the  climates  and  house- 
keeping of  nations. 

Still  others  see  the  world  as  a  place  to  trade  in 
and  grow  rich,  —  a  gorge  between  gold  moun- 
tains, where  they  must  quarry,  and  crush,  and 
perhaps  sift  mud  for  gold-dust,  or  set  up  their 
booth  to  traffic  with  the  miners,  while  the  swift 
day  lasts,  for  the  bagful  to  support  them  during 
the  evening,  and  to  leave  to  others  when  they  go 
to  sleep. 

Or  it  is  a  pleasure-ground  for  giddy  or  elegant 
enjoyment;  or  it  is  a  scene  of  struggling  pas- 
sions, where  the  ambitious  will  must  wrestle  and 
push  and  trample,  possibly  for  a  forward  position, 
or  a  seat  of  authority  and  fame. 

It  is  plain,  therefore,  that  our  natural  bent  in 
the  line  of  work  does  a  great  deal  to  impress  a 
character  upon  the  universe.  Even  when  no 
moral  quality  is  involved,  we  see  how  life  gets 


The  Hearty  and  the  Issues  of  Life,     257 

coined  at  our  mint,  so  that  the  world,  God's 
world,  somehow  wears  the  stamp  of  the  die  cut 
into  our  heart.  All  this  belongs  as  commentary 
to  the  proverb  I  have  taken  for  a  text. 

And  temperament,  natural  temperament,  has 
an  effect  on  life  that  must  be  considered  for  a 
moment  in  this  connection.  The  Almighty  would 
have  to  create  an  intenser  sunshine  for  the  grave 
and  melancholy  man,  if  he  would  make  the  world 
seem  as  radiant  to  him  as  it  does  to  a  person 
blessed  with  an  organically  cheerful  mood.  Some 
people  seem  to  carry  extra  sheaves  of  sunbeams 
^n  their  bosom,  and  carols  of  birds,  and  sweet 
tints  of  verdure,  which  they  shed  into  the  air  and 
sprinkle  over  nature.  If  a  man  has  a  music-box 
in  his  heart,  the  pulse  of  the  sun  will  seem  to 
beat  with  it,  and  the  trees  to  throb  and  bud  with 
its  melody.  If  his  bosom  is  strung  as  an  ^olian 
harp,  nature  will  be  full  of  weird  and  sad  ca- 
dences. 

You  know  how  experience,  also,  interprets  the 
same  principle,  even  in  cases  where  moral  con- 
siderations are  not  prominent.  You  know  how  a 
piece  of  good  fortune  brightens  the  air,  how  pros- 
perous hours  make  the  globe  buoyant,  how  some 
impending  evil  puts  the  edge  of  a  spiritual  eclipse 
upon  the  sun  as  solemnly  as  the  shadow  of  the 
moon  settles  on  its  burning  disc,  how  suddenly 
ill-fortune  in  business  will  seem  to  make  the  very 
springs  of  beauty  bankrupt,  how  the  sickness  of  a 
dear  friend  turns  nature  pallid,  how  the  death  of 

Q 


25 8     The  Hearty  and  the  Issues  of  Life, 

wife,  husband,  or  child  will  convert  all  the  trees 
to  cypress,  and  set  the  music  of  nature  in  a  minor 
key,  as  a  dirge  or  requiem. 

All  these  facts,  which  belong  rather  to  the  mar- 
gin of  our  subject,  enforce  the  duty  of  "keeping 
the  heart."  For  though  aptitudes,  temperaments, 
and  moods  have  much  to  do  with  the  tone  and 
quality  of  our  life,  states  have  more.  A  dark 
moral  state  stretches  a  permanent  veil  of  cloud 
over  the  heart,  that  thins  and  chills  all  the  light, 
while  a  mood  or  a  sorrow  may  sail  only  like  the 
swift  blackness  of  a  shower  through  our  air.  And 
we  can  do  a  great  deal  to  control  the  moral  states 
of  the  heart ;  we  are  responsible  for  them. 

Every  person  is  exposed  to  some  particular  vice 
or  passion  which  strives  to  gnaw  its  way  into  the 
core  of  character,  to  be  seated  there.  You  are 
not  responsible  for  your  constitutional  exposures, 
but  you  are  for  the  treatment  you  give  yourself  in 
view  of  that  exposure.  This  makes  the  solemnity 
of  the  Scriptural  injunction  to  guard  against  the 
"sin  that  easily  besets  us."  If  we  do  not  fight 
with  it,  we  become  possessed  by  it  at  last,  and  our 
whole  experience  gets  flavored  with  it.  Some  one 
of  you  may  lie  so  exposed,  by  constitutional  weak- 
ness, to  envy,  that  it  is  your  call  to  keep  the  heart 
with  all  dihgence  against  it.  What  a  pitiable  and 
dreadful  thing  it  is  when  the  heart  has  become  so 
corroded  by  that  form  of  selfishness  that  it  can- 
not feel  generous  pleasure  in  seeing  the  prosper- 
ity, the  rising  position,  the  increasing  happiness. 


The  Heart,  and  the  Issues  of  Life,     259 

of  those  with  whom  it  is  associated  and  brought 
in  contrast !  What  sickness  must  infect  the  bo- 
som, what  evil  must  smoulder  in  its  blood,  when 
the  fortune  of  others,  the  praise  of  others,  the  en- 
joyment of  others,  wakens  pain  in  its  own  fibres, 
and  burns  its  sensibilities  as  though  wrong  had 
been  wrought  upon  itself;  when  sunshine  that 
God  pours  upon  another's  way  darkens  its  breast, 
and  the  bounties  that  drop  into  a  neighbor's  lap 
start  a  hideous  and  malignant  hunger  in  its  own 
soul! 

I  have  not  time  to  dwell  upon  this  sin  in  any 
detail.  It  besets  civilized  society  and  threatens 
Christian  natures  with  its  black  poison.  Strive 
with  it  if  you  are  in  peril  from  it ;  for  if  you  be- 
come subject  to  it,  it  will  pollute  the  currents  of 
your  life.  God  created  the  world  in  unspeakable 
generosity,  and  you  cannot  be  in  harmony  with 
his  life  if  you  have  an  envious  heart.  Nature  will 
not  be  to  you,  society  will  not  be  to  you,  innocent 
pleasure  will  not  be  to  you,  what  they  might  and 
would  be  if  that  bitter  drop  from  hell  was  not 
hidden  in  the  core  of  your  spirit.  You  are  not 
only  exposed  to  God's  direct  judgments  upon  so 
hateful  a  sin,  you  are  not  only  liable  to  the  savage 
retributions  which  envy,  by  its  own  natural  mis- 
eries, inflicts  on  the  soul,  but  all  your  life  gets  des- 
ecrated by  it,  and  is  re-created  as  it  flows  through 
you  with  its  stamp. 

Avarice  offers  an  equally  strong  and  repulsive 
illustration.     If  you  are  tempted  morally  by  the 


26o     The  Heart,  and  the  Issues  of  Life, 

love  of  money,  and  if  through  3^our  weakness  or 
negligence  it  becomes  supreme  in  you,  your 
whole  life  is  tinged  by  the  jaundice  you  have 
allowed  to  infect  the  heart.  God's  quality  is  in 
the  world  around  you  ;  but  your  quality  is  diffused 
through  all  that  you  see  and  experience.  Only 
the  heart  that  is  sympathetic  and  merciful,  only 
the  heart  that  holds  money  subordinate  to  gener- 
ous uses  and  service,  can  know  what  the  gracious 
stars  and  the  munificent  sun  and  the  liberal  sea 
and  the  bounteous  earth  whisper  to  us  from  the 
spirit  of  God  ;  can  know  what  is  the  glory  of  his- 
tory, what  the  worth  of  human  nature,  what  "  the 
unsearchable,  riches  of  Christ."  The  issues  of 
life  from  your  heart  shrivel  if  you  insist  on  turn- 
ing it  into  a  money-till,  and  will  not  bring  it  into 
harmony  with  nature  and  the  Gospel  by  keeping 
it  a  fountain  of  benefits  and  love. 

Remember  that  the  innermost  woe  of  self-indul- 
gence and  intemperate  pleasure  is  the  vicious  im- 
agination they  create  and  the  turbid  heart  they 
leave,  which,  like  the  troubled  sea,  casts  up  mire 
and  dirt  to  pollute  the  transparent  medium  in 
which  God  invites  us  to  dwell.  When  the  vice  of 
license  becomes  despotic  in  a  soul,  it  soils  all  the 
purity  of  God's  art  and  bounty.  The  world  is 
clean  and  lovely  as  on  the  first  day;  but  the  im- 
pure soul  has  thickened  the  light,  and  virtually 
turned  nature  into  a  wide  fen. 

Keep  thy  heart,  my  brother,  with  all  diligence, 


The  Hearty  and  the  Issues  of  Life.     261 

for  its  state  is  of  unspeakable  moment  with  you. 
Life  comes  to  all  of  us  from  the  same  Infinite 
source.  Its  treasury  in  nature  and  the  Spirit  is 
identical  for  the  rich  and  the  poor,  the  evil  and 
the  good.  But  its  qualities,  so  different  —  we 
must  search  our  natures  for  the  cause  of  those. 
It  is  one  element  of  water  that  is  distilled  by  Prov- 
idence for  the  refreshment  of  man.  Pure  and 
tasteless,  it  is  tempted  by  the  sunshine  out  of  the 
sea,  and  is  wrung  from  cloudy  sponges  upon  the 
hillsides,  to  be  distributed  under  ground  for  the 
universal  need.  Yet  how  variously  in  taste  and 
wholesomeness  it  bubbles  finally  for  our  using ! 
It  gets  the  quality  of  the  earth  ;  it  is  penetrated 
by  the  influence  of  the  chalk  layers,  the  beds  of 
limestone,  the  clay  deposits,  the  granite,  the  min- 
eral floors,  the  swampy  regions  through  which  it 
filters,  and  from  which  it  issues  into  light.  Ah ! 
and  if  a  snake  has  his  home  at  the  spring  where 
it  bubbles  for  our  drinking,  of  what  consequence 
is  it  that  it  dropped  at  first  cleaner  than  a  seraph's 
tears  upon  a  mountain  peak,  and  has  taken  no 
stain  on  its  passage,  if  poison  drips  from  that 
creature  to  mix  with  all  its  pulses  at  last  ?  "  Keep 
thy  heart  with  all  diligence  "  ;  for,  though  all  your 
life  flows  to  you  out  of  God,  the  venom  may  be 
secreted  from  the  passions  you  nourish  to  taint 
all  the  stream. 

The  moral  evils  we  have  been  treating  of,  envy, 
avarice,  selfishness,  license,  only  vivify  with  various 


262     The  Hearty  and  the  Issues  of  Life, 

coloring  the  one  fundamental  evil,  sin,  —  dis- 
tance from  sympathy  with  God,  alienation  from 
the  heavenly  Father,  indifference  or  disloyalty  to 
his  will  and  love.  This  is  our  central  foe.  This 
is  what  corrupts  the  issues  of  life.  This  is  the 
serpent  at  the  fountain.  Back  of  all  sins  is  sin. 
The  one  comprehensive  purpose  of  life  is  to  bring 
Infinite  grace  to  bear  on  that,  and  drive  it  from 
the  inmost  artery  of  the  soul. 

Consider,  my  brother,  how  this  universe  changes 
hue  and  expression  before  you,  when  once  in  a 
while  the  sense  of  God  comes  to  you  afresh,  and 
for  the  moment  thrills  you  through  and  through. 
You  look  up,  perhaps,  into  the  clear  night,  and 
you  feel  for  a  season  that  all  those  dots  are  worlds 
floating  on  the  sea  of  his  power,  or,  through  their 
light,  breaks  full  upon  you  the  countenance  of  In- 
finite life  and  purity.  You  are  under  the  spell  of 
some  religious  eloquence,  and  you  get  a  glimpse 
for  an  instant  of  the  truth  of  Providence,  —  what 
it  means  that  Infinite  thought  and  care  embosom 
and  penetrate  this  whole  creation.  Your  passions 
are  still,  your  heart  is  in  chord  with  holy  truth, 
and  for  a  moment  the  cloud  of  your  ordinary 
scepticism  breaks,  and  you  see  the  blue  heaven 
of  life  and  love  glowing  over  this  world  of  death, 
and  you  know  in  that  vision  what  it  is  to  believe 
in  immortality.  Think,  now,  of  a  soul  in  which 
these  passing  moods,  to  which  you  have  been 
lifted,  are  states,  —  that  feels  the  life  of  God  trem- 


The  Heart,  and  the  Issues  of  Life.     263 

bling  over  all  the  strings  of  nature ;  that  believes 
in  Providence  just  as  firmly  as  in  human  experi- 
ence, in  perfect  justice  just  as  strongly  as  in  par- 
tial wrong,  in  eternal  life  as  constantly  as  in 
bodily  death,  in  final  order  as  fixedly  as  in  con- 
fusion now.  Is  not  the  world  re-born  to  such  a 
soul  ?  Has  it  not  found  the  blessed  sorcery  that 
exorcises  from  nature  all  that  haunts  the  heart 
and  darkens  joy?  Is  not  nature  rebuilt  for  such 
a  mind  into  an  enduring  home  ? 

It  is  Christian  truths  and  qualities  settled  into 
inward  states  that  do  this,  —  the  turning  of  a  few 
sentences  of  the  New  Testament  into  the  life- 
blood  of  the  heart.  And  it  is  sin  (not  any  partic- 
ular and  namable  sin,  but  sin  in  its  essence, — 
selfishness,  unconsecration,  love  of  yourself  more 
than  truth  and  goodness,  what  the  Church  means 
by  "depravity  of  the  affections")  that  keeps  you 
from  this  state.  This  it  is,  more  than  blindness, 
lack  of  evidence,  or  incompetence  of  the  mind  to 
grapple  with  such  problems. 

The  first  thing  to  do,  in  order  that  such  life 
may  issue  from  your  heart,  is  to  get  your  heart 
broken.  Not  because  it  is  totally  corrupt,  but 
because  it  is  not  centrally  dedicated,  —  because 
God  is  not  invited  and  admitted  to  the  inner 
shrine,  to  rule  thence  with  his  wisdom  and  purity, 
so  that  you  shall  consciously  live  for  him.  This 
world,  with  its  hard  conditions  and  mysteries,  is 
built  for  an  upper  and  nether  millstone  to  grind 
pride  out  of  human  hearts,  to  crush  their  natural 


264     The  Heart,  and  the  Issues  of  Life, 

state,  so  that,  in  penitence  and  humilit}^,  God  may 
come  into  the  spirit,  and  the  world  seem  remade 
because  the  soul  is  regenerate  in  consecration 
and  the  beginning  of  a  fihal  Hfe.  When  you 
throw  sin  from  the  centre  of  the  heart  to  the 
outside,  so  that  thenceforth,  however  you  may  sin, 
you  have  the  principle  of  protest,  sorrow,  and  re- 
newal in  your  soul,  by  the  presence  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  there,  —  when  you  are  thus  dedicated  as  a 
temple  to  the  Divine  Love,  the  whole  light  of  the 
world  is  religious;  your  joy  is  sweetened  by  piety, 
your  adversities  are  illumined,  your  wrongs  are 
tinged  with  the  light  of  Christ's  patience  and  for- 
giveness, and  you  see  that  the  grave  is  only  a 
step  nearer  to  God. 

You  are  to  keep  your  heart  with  all  diligence, 
by  desiring  and  praying  for  this  spirit  of  sympa- 
thy with  God  and  allegiance  to  him.  And  you 
are  also  to  "  keep  *'  it  by  living  in  fellowship  with 
great  truths  and  sentiments.  If  you  have  had 
any  seasons  or  season  when  you  have  seen  the 
value  and  blessedness  of  a  religious  conception 
of  the  universe  and  of  religious  principle,  honor 
that ;  honor  your  soul's  own  witness  to  sacred 
realities,  by  trying  to  keep  in  the  society  of  those 
noble  truths  and  ideas. 

Some  persons  wonder  why  they  do  not  see 
more  of  this  sacred  meaning,  and  feel  more  of 
this  spiritual  joy  in  life,  than  they  do,  if  religious 
truth,  if  the  Gospel  of  Jesus,  is  so  certain  a 
reality.     "  We  have  no  hostility,"  they  say,  "  that 


The  Hearty  and  the  Issues  of  Life,     265 

we  are  conscious  of,  to  God  and  the  sphere  of 
spiritual  verities.  Why,  then,  does  not  Hfe  pre- 
sent such  an  aspect  and  such  glory  to  us  ? "  It  is 
simply  because  the  luxury  and  cheer  of  religion 
are  something  to  be  lived  up  to  and  lived  into. 
The  perception  that  there  is  a  God,  that  the  Bible 
is  probably  true,  that  the  spirit  of  Christ  is  higher 
than  selfishness,  is  highest  in  history,  may  be 
gained,  as  a  transient  thing,  by  thought  and  by 
logic ;  but  you  must  take  these  truths  into  your 
sympathy,  live  their  society  so  that  the  material- 
ism of  habit  will  thin  away,  and  the  darkness  of 
self  and  self-indulgence  melt,  before  the  charm 
they  shed  on  the  world  will  appear.  And  so,  my 
friend,  do  not  ask  if  you  simply  believe  that  God 
exists,  but  try  to  make  him  more  familiar  to  your 
mind  and  heart,  —  try  to  feel  him  in  your  con- 
science, in  your  purest  affections,  pleading,  in  the 
appeals  that  breathe  within  you,  for  a  devouter 
and  more  loyal  life.  These  are  the  great  truths 
of  the  world,  and  the  all-important  facts  of  your 
life,  and  by  keeping  the  company  of  such  high 
conceptions  and  moods,  you  are  putting  yourself 
in  the  line  of  their  rewards  and  bliss.  You  are 
to  grow  into  the  joys  of  faith.  That  is  the  law. 
And  how  can  you  —  how  can  you  ? —  sweeten  life, 
if  you  do  not  and  will  not  try  to  keep  fellowship, 
though  temptation  and  sloth  and  the  flesh  stand 
in  the  way,  with  the  supreme  realities  of  nature  ? 
If,  therefore,  you  wish  to  be  serious  with  this 
subject  that  tries  to  be  serious  with  you,  ask  your- 
12 


266     The  Heart,  and  the  Issues  of  Life, 

selves  how  much  need  you  have  to  reconsider 
and  rearrange  the  habits  of  your  life,  before  you 
can  keep  your  heart  with  all  diligence,  —  what 
passions  you  should  trample  which  you  now  cher- 
ish, and  what  zeal  you  require  in  searching  for 
God  in  nature,  in  life,  and  the  Bible,  that  you 
may  find  him,  and  so  find  rest. 

1857. 


XVII. 

SALT  THAT   HAS  LOST  ITS  SAVOR;    OR,  RELIGION 
CORRUPTED. 

"  Ye  are  the  salt  of  the  earth ;  but  if  the  salt  have  lost  his 
savor,  wherewith  shall  it  be  salted?  it  is  thenceforth  good  for 
nothing,  but  to  be  cast  out,  and  to  be  trodden  under  foot  of 
men."  —  Matthew  v.  13. 

THIS  passage  refers  primarily  to  the  first  dis- 
ciples of  Jesus,  and  chiefly  to  the  Apostles. 
How  powerfully,  with  this  interpretation,  it  re- 
veals the  prophetic  reach  and  clearness  of  the 
vision  of  the  Saviour,  and  the  force  of  imagination 
which  condenses  into  one  focus  a  vast  amount  of 
truth,  and  of  truth  which  rays  out  in  various  direc- 
tions !  Jesus  addressed  these  words  to  his  dis- 
ciples, on  the  threshold  of  his  ministry,  in  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount.  The  company  was  gath- 
ered in  an  obscure  district  of  Galilee,  and  the 
Teacher  said  to  his  chosen  disciples,  "  You  are 
related  to  the  welfare,  not  of  this  district  simply, 
nor  to  this  mountain-region  of  Palestine  only, 
nor  to  Palestine  itself  as  the  limit  of  your  influ- 
ence, but  to  the  welfare  of  the  world.  You  are 
the  salt  of  the  earth." 

Christ  did  not  say  that  his  truth  was  the  salt  of 


268        Salt  that  has  lost  its  Savor ; 

the  earth,  but  that  those  teachers  were,  —  his 
truth  embodied  or  rather  ensouled  in  those  men. 
"  The  Word  was  made  flesh  "  in  him ;  and  it  was 
to  be  by  the  Word  made  flesh  to  some  extent  in 
those  humble  and  unlettered  persons  that  redeem- 
ing influence,  preserving  life,  was  to  be  diflused 
throughout  the  world. 

What  could  have  seemed  then  more  unlikely  to 
be  true  than  that  broad,  tremendous  statement? 
What  were  they,  those  first  believers  in  Galilee, 
husbandmen,  fishermen,  artisans,  knowing,  per- 
haps, scarcely  a  phrase  of  the  languages  of  civili- 
zation and  power,  —  what  were  they  in  relation  to 
the  thought,  the  culture,  the  power,  the  fashion, 
the  opulence,  the  passions,  the  interests  of  that 
generation  ?  But  Jesus  said  that,  of  all  that 
proud  and  heaving  life  in  whose  expanse  they 
seemed  to  be  mere  insects  on  an  ocean,  they 
were  the  preserving  element,  —  not  ephemera  on 
the  waves,  but  the  salt  of  the  deeps.  And  it 
became  true.  Think  of  our  dependence  on  the 
disciples  to  whom  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  was 
first  preached  !  If  the  Apostles  had  failed,  the 
world  would  have  failed.  Christianity  has  been 
the  world's  life,  and  the  diffusion  of  it  was  de- 
pendent  on  the  loyalty  and  truthfulness  of  the 
Apostles.  If  they  had  lost  their  savor,  after 
Jesus  had  passed  into  heaven,  wherewith  should 
the  world  have  been  salted  ?  If  Peter  had  been 
permanently  a  coward  ;  if  all  the  twelve  had  been 
Judases,  ratable  on  the  world's  price-current  at 


or^  Religion  Corrupted,  269 

thirty  pieces  of  silver  each  ;  if  John,  who  oxvdk  VJ 
wanted  to  call  down  fire  from  heaven  on  an  inhos-  ^ 
pitable  village,  had  never  advanced  beyond  the 
desire  of  revenge;  if  Thomas  had  always  been  a 
doubter ;  if  James  had  reached  no  higher  ambition 
than  to  sit  on  Christ's  right  hand,  a  prominent 
office-holder  in  an  earthly  kingdom  of  Jesus,  —  if 
all  the  Apostles  had  fallen  in  the  line  of  their 
weakness,  and  had  failed  to  be  channels  of  the 
truth  and  spirit  of  their  Saviour,  the  world  would 
have  perished  morally,  there  would  have  been  no 
salt  for  a  decaying  civilization ;  and  on  the  nega- 
tive side  the  words  of  Jesus  would  have  been 
proved  true.  How  fortunate  for  us,  what  a  call 
to  devout  gratitude  from  us,  that  those  words, 
which  must  have  seemed  so  extravagant  and  dis- 
proportionate at  their  first  utterance  in  the  seclu- 
sion of  ignorant  Galilee,  have  become  true  on  the 
positive  side,  so  that  we  are  living  in  a  civiliza- 
tion of  which  the  first  Apostles,  taking  their  life 
from  the  Saviour,  were  the  preserving  salt ! 

But  the  passage  contains  a  truth  of  which  the 
first  application  to  the  Apostles  is  only  a  small 
part.  If  they  had  failed  to  be  true  to  their  trusts 
and  call,  they  would  have  been  ^not  simply  un- 
faithful men,  but  impious  and  infamous  men. 
The  verdict  against  them  in  heaven  would  have 
been  high  treason.  They  would  have  been  fit  for 
nothing  but  "  to  be  trodden  under  foot  of  men." 
This  was  so  in  the  case  of  Judas.  He  fell  from 
an  immense  height;  he  was  chosen  to  be  salt, 


270        Salt  that  has  lost  its  Savor ; 

and  he  chose  to  be  taint;  he  not  only  failed 
to  fulfil  his  duty,  but  he  turned  his  sovereign 
opportunity  and  highest  trust  into  the  means  of 
wickedness;  he  converted  salt  into  poison,  and 
he  has  given  his  name  to  the  highest  class  of 
crimes.  Consummate  traitors  are  branded  with 
it  as  their  severest  historical  punishment.  He  has 
been  accounted  good  for  nothing  —  poor  short- 
sighted man,  who  might  have  sat  on  one  of  the 
twelve  thrones  of  the  whole  moral  world  !  —  but 
to  be  stamped  under  the  feet  of  the  human  race. 
So  valid,  brethren,  are  the  words  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Peter  came  near  to  fulfilling  them.  He  denied 
his  Master ;  he  made  oath  with  curses,  too,  that 
he  knew  him  not.  He  fell ;  but  he  rose  quickly, 
and  renewed  the  salt  of  his  character  by  the  tears 
of  his  repentance,  to  become  a  principle  of  life  to 
tens  of  thousands  of  souls. 

Where  a  man  is  so  connected  with  others  that 
his  virtue  must  be  a  public  blessing,  and  his  vice 
or  unfaithfulness  a  public  and  far-spreading  dis- 
aster, he  must  be  very  careful  of  his  loyalty,  for 
he  is  exposed  to  the  sweep  of  this  principle  ut- 
tered first  to  the  Apostles  by  Him  who  "  spake 
as  never  man  spake."  There  is  no  person  who 
receives  more  abundant  and  demonstrative  honor 
than  the  soldier  who  is  a  consecrated  patriot,  and 
who  is  successful  in  rescuing  his  country  from 
peril.  And  the  fall  of  a  soldier  morally  from  a 
position  of  high  trust  is  one  of  the  most  awful 
instances   of   sin.      No   one   thinks   of  peering 


or.  Religion  Corrupted,  271 

closely  into  the  private  character  of  the  Duke  of 
Wellington.  Few  think  of  trying  to  make  a  nice 
estimate  of  the  private  and  public  worth  of  Lord 
Nelson.  The  private  or  personal  sins  or  failings 
of  such  men  are  accounted  of  far  less  import 
than  with  most  of  us ;  and  not  because  military 
and  naval  glory  confounds  our  perception  or  se- 
duces our  judgment,  but  because  their  public 
service,  by  their  thorough  fidelity  to  their  supreme 
duty,  was  an  immense  force  of  good  to  millions  in 
their  land.  In  large  relations  they  were  the  salt 
of  the  nation,  and  they  did  not  suffer  it  to  lose  its 
savor.  Whatever  private  vices  they  had  cast  a 
shadow  but  a  little  way ;  if  they  had  carried  a 
vice  in  their  passions  that  were  related  to  public 
life,  it  would  have  cast  a  long,  wide,  terrible 
shadow,  and  none  the  less  although  they  might 
have  been  free  from  some  personal  failings  that 
may  be  detected  in  them  now. 

Nobody  thinks  of  asking  now  about  the  private 
or  domestic  character  of  Arnold.  He  may  have 
been  benevolent,  a  kind  and  tender  husband,  a 
friend  ready  to  attest  private  friendship  by  sacri- 
fices. Suppose  that  all  this  should  be  proved 
in  his  behalf.  The  qualities,  to  be  sure,  would  be 
good  ;  we  could  not  call  them  anything  less  or 
else  than  good.  God  would  regard  them  as  good, 
and  reward  them  as  such,  no  doubt.  But  he  was 
not  sent  to  West  Point  to  be  kind  to  his  wife, 
tender  to  his  children,  faithful  to  one  or  two  per- 
sonal friends.     He  was  not  chosen  for  that  post 


272        Salt  that  has  lost  its  Savor ; 

by  the  recommendation  of  such  graces  of  charac- 
ter. He  was  sent  to  be  true  to  a  nation,  and 
with  the  expectation  that  he  would  dedicate  brain 
and  sword,  watchfulness  and  valor,  will  and  con- 
stancy, to  an  abused  and  suffering  people  in  the 
crisis  of  its  fate.  He  was  lifted  up  to  a  post 
where  light  from  him  or  shadow  from  him  must 
sweep,  not  over  one  home  or  a  restricted  circle, 
but  over  thousands  of  square  miles,  millions  of 
human  beings,  generations  of  his  countrymen. 
He  chose  that  it  should  be  gloom.  And  if  he 
should  be  proved  ten  times  as  attractive  a  man 
in  the  virtues  that  show  themselves  on  a  smaller 
scale  as  he  can  ever  be  rated,  the  nation  he  was 
willing  to  betray  would  not  hesitate  to  stamp 
him  still  beneath  its  feet,  as  the  only  fit  judgment 
upon  his  public  crime. 

No  doubt  many  of  the  leaders  of  the  present  re- 
bellion are  men  who  are  estimable  in  private  re- 
lations. They  would  not  repudiate  a  debt.  They 
would  not  break  an  oath.  They  would  not  creep 
into  chambers,  and,  with  dark  lantern  in  one  hand 
and  dagger  in  the  other,  strike  into  the  heart  of 
a  sleeping  victim  before  he  could  wake  under  the 
fiendish  ray.  Alas!  how  much  better  for  most 
of  them  if  they  had  only  such  guilt  to  answer  for 
in  history  and  before  God !  It  was  obligations 
by  scores  of  millions  that  they  tore  up.  It  is 
pledges  of  honor  involving  the  interests  of  a  con- 
tinent which  they  breathed  away  in  perjury.  It 
is  a  nation's  heart  they  felt  for  with  light  and  cun- 


OTy  Religion  Corrupted.  273 

ning  fingers,  that  they  might  strike  into  its  tre- 
mendous pulse  and  enjoy  the  sight  of  the  spouting 
torrent  of  life.  Let  us  not  try  to  picture  it.  Turn 
away  from  their  work  to  pray  that  it  may  not  be 
completed  according  to  the  awful  scheme  of 
assassination  ;  to  pray  that  the  land  may  be  saved, 
that  their  children  may  enjoy  the  fruits  of  the 
patriotic  service  which  strives  to  prevent  the  con- 
summation of  the  guilt,  and  that  they  may  be  for- 
given of  heaven  through  ample  penitence.  But 
let  the  projected  spectacle  and  the  thought  of  its 
intended  horrors  impress  us  with  the  importance, 
in  God's  sight,  of  positions  where  character  acts 
upon  a  wide  moral  area,  and  shapes  or  mars  the 
happiness  and  prosperity  of  millions  to  come. 

Legislators  ought  to  think  of  this  principle 
thus.  If  they  put  their  vices  into  laws  they  dam- 
age a  state.  A  private  falsehood,  a  trick  in  busi- 
ness, a  fraud  in  a  transaction  with  one  person,  is 
a  black  sin.  What  is  it  to  corrupt  the  sources 
of  justice,  to  put  false  weights  into  scales  that 
stretch  from  Colorado  to  Syskiyou,  to  tamper 
with  the  rights  and  prosperity  of  hundreds  of 
settlements  which  men  hold  in  trust  ?  Yet  I  pre- 
sume that  sometimes  the  very  magnitude  of  the 
interasts  involved  blinds  a  man  to  the  sin  of  un- 
faithfulness to  them.  He  does  not  see  that  it  is 
proportionally  immense.  Sometimes  a  nian  will 
endanger  the  rights  of  ten  thousand  people,  or 
fail  to  enlarge  the  prosperity  of  a.  hundred  thou- 
sand for  whom  he  is  trustee,  who  could  not  be 


274        ^^^^  i^^^^  ^^^^  ^^^^  ^^^  Savor ; 

tempted  to  cheat  one  man  in  the  same  town  with 
himself,  or  be  false  to  the  claims  of  one  client  or 
one  ward.  No  person  has  the  right  to  a  seat  in 
any  legislative  assembly  who  is  so  loosely  made 
in  the  spirit  that  he  can  imagine  principles  to  be 
less  sacred  when  they  reach  communities  than 
when  they  reach  persons,  and  who  does  not  feel  the 
privilege  and  honor  and  responsibility  of  strength- 
ening instead  of  weakening  justice  and  truth  in 
the  statutes  and  customs  of  a  state.  The  privi- 
lege is  vast.  It  is  kindred  with  the  privilege  of 
the  first  disciples  and  Apostles.  As  private  Gali- 
leans they  were  endowed  with  the  simple  oppor- 
tunities of  fishermen,  tax-gatherers,  and  mechanics. 
Called  out  by  Christ  to  represent  his  truth,  they 
were  the  salt  of  the  earth,  and  their  fidelity  was  to 
be  part  of  the  strength  and  soundness  of  future 
centuries.  A  thoughtful  and  honest  legislator  will 
feel  grateful  for  the  privilege  of  a  post  where  his 
private  conscience  may  help  the  enactment  of 
justice  and  the  diffusion  of  beneficence  and  the 
defeat  of  wrong  and  the  uplifting  of  light  for  the 
benefit  of  thousands  whom  personally  he  can  never 
know.  And  every  hall  of  legislation  is  under  the 
blaze  and  sweep,  positively  and  negatively,  of  the 
passage,  "  If  the  salt  have  lost  his  savor,  where- 
with shall  it  be  salted  ?  it  is  thenceforth  good  for 
nothing  but  to  be  cast  out  and  to  be  trodden 
under  foot  of  men." 

I  beg  you  to  see  the  same  law  of  trust  in  rela- 
tion to  your  homes.    There  are  forces  for  good  in 


or^  Religion  Corrupted,  275 

modern  Christendom  outside  of  the  household. 
There  is  the  daily  school,  there  is  the  Sunday 
school,  there  is  the  influence  of  the  Church,  there 
are  good  boolcs.  But  the  home  is  the  enclosure 
where  the  principles  are  most  likely  to  be  formed 
and  the  instincts  to  be  pointed  towards  truth  and 
good.  And  if  that  influence  is  indifferent  or 
wrong,  in  thousands  of  cases  the  season  of  oppor- 
tunity is  lost.  As  to  the  characters  of  children 
parents  are  appointed  to  be  the  salt  of  the  earth. 
And  scepticism  there,  levity  there  in  the  home, 
the  unchecked  play  of  passions  there  in  open 
despite  of  God's  law,  the  plain  and  daily  enthrone- 
ment of  worldly  aims  there  as  though  nothing 
else  is  substantial,  are  not  only  personal  sins  in  a 
father  or  mother,  but  a  betrayal  of  trust,  the 
conversion  of  a  sacred  energy  into  a  polluting 
force.  "  If  the  salt  lose  its  savor,  wherewith  shall 
it  be  salted  ? "  That  is  the  moan  over  ten  thou- 
sand desecrated  homes.  Wherewith  shall  char- 
acter be  seasoned  ?  The  domestic  influence  is 
against  the  budding  soul.  Blight  is  in  the  dew, 
bane  is  in  the  air,  virus  is  in  the  sunshine,  pesti- 
lence is  in  the  soil.  How  shall  the  plant  grow 
healthily?  Now  and  then  a  breeze  that  is  pure, 
a  stream  of  wholesome  light,  visits  it ;  but  the 
permanent  forces  are  against  it,  the  forces  that 
should  nurture  it  morally  only  dwarf  or  wound. 
Are  you  willing  that  your  homes  shall  come,  or 
be  in  danger  of  coming,  under  this  description  ? 
One  of  two  kinds  your  homes  must  be, — helpful 


2^6        Salt  that  has  lost  its  Savor ; 

or  hurtful  to  the  rising  life  in  them.  If  hurtful, 
no  other  influence  will  be  so  hostile ;  if  you  make 
them  winningly  helpful,  your  houses  are  sacred, — 
they  are  churches,  —  however  obscure  they  be  by 
social  tests  here,  they  are  part  of  the  landscape 
of  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

But  there  is  another  significance  in  the  words 
of  Jesus  more  general  than  any  we  have  drawn 
from  the  passage,  and  not  less  impressive  in  its 
instruction  and  warning.  It  not  only  teaches  us 
that  great  trusts  betrayed  are  the  deadliest  sins, 
but  it  intimates  or  implies  that  there  is  nothing 
worse  than  corrupted  religion.  What  a  man  hon- 
estly accepts  as  a  religious  obligation  or  impulse 
may  be  so  far  from  religious  that  it  deserves  to  be 
trampled  under  foot. 

Some  commentators  tell  us  that  Jesus  made  a 
specific  allusion  in  this  passage  to  a  substance 
which  was  well  known  to  all  who  had  seen  the 
temple  sacrifices  in  Jerusalem.  They  say  that  a 
kind  of  bitumen  from  the  Dead  Sea  was  used  to 
sprinkle  the  meats  offered  on  the  altars,  called  the 
"  Sodom  salt,"  and  that  when  it  lost  its  virtue  it 
was  strewn  on  the  temple  pavement  to  prevent  the 
priests  from  slipping.  However  this  may  be,  the 
principle  is  true  that  what  a  man  supposes  to  be 
religious  may,  although  connected  in  his  thought 
with  services  and  sanctions  of  religion,  be  not 
only  destitute  of  religious  value,  but  so  hostile  to 
the  pure  religious  spirit  that  it  is  horrible,  fit  only 
to  be  trodden  under  foot,  —  salt  of  Sodom. 


or,  Religion  Corrupted,  277 

You  all  know  how,  on  a  large  scale,  in  history, 
perverted  religion  has  been  one  of  the  chief 
curses  of  mankind.  What  hatreds  have  been  so 
intense  as  those  which  rival  theologies  have  in- 
flamed ?  What  wars  have  been  so  infuriate  as 
those  whose  banners,  on  both  sides,  have  borne 
the  same  figure  of  Christ,  but  set  in  different 
lights?  What  courts  have  been  so  thirsty  for 
blood  as  those  sustained  by  priests  for  the  testing 
of  heresy  ?  "  Perverted  religion,'^  do  we  call  this  ? 
No,  brethren.  Inverted  religion  it  is.  Sin,  crime 
against  God  and  the  New  Testament,  high  trea- 
son in  the  spiritual  kingdom,  is  it.  Religion  has 
nothing  to  do  with  it,  but  to  throw  it  into  shadow, 
and  make  it  the  more  heinous.  It  claims  to  be 
part  of  the  altar-service  of  the  human  race,  but  it 
is  the  worst  infamy.  It  is  a  power  from  the  eter- 
nal world,  but  it  is  from  the  kingdom  of  evil,  a 
flame  from  hell.  Whatever  tends  to  it,  whatever 
is  in  harmony  with  it,  whatever  seems  to  be  in 
kindred  with  it,  in  your  own  heart,  quench  it,  tear 
it  out,  trample  it  down.  It  is  Satanic.  Men 
have  said  that  devotion  to  the  truth  of  God  has 
led  them  to  such  methods  of  extirpating  error, 
and  of  keeping  the  Church  or  a  nation  pure. 
But  the  deepest  truth  of  the  Church  is  good-will, 
charity.  And  a  man  draws  the  sword,  or  un- 
sheathes his  bitterest  passions,  to  impose  his 
creed  on  others,  only  after  he  has  changed  the 
sovereign  "  truth  of  God  into  a  lie." 

Such   manifestations  of  malignant  passion  in 


2/8        Salt  that  has  lost  its  Savor ; 

the  supposed  service  of  pure  Christianity  are 
rarer  to-day  than  they  have  been.  But  eager  zeal 
for  the  offensive  prominence  of  a  particular  the- 
ology or  form  of  worship,  with  sweeping  sneers  at 
other  forms  of  truth  and  homage,  or  sweeping 
condemnation  of  all  other  types  of  belief,  is  un- 
fortunately not  infrequent  now.  You  sometimes 
meet  with  Catholics  who  never  raise  the  question 
that  there  can  be  any  saving  power  or  faith  out- 
side the  reach  of  their  miraculous  sacraments. 
You  sometimes  meet  with  High-Church  Epis- 
copalians who  cannot  imagine  that  the  angels  or 
the  Infinite  One  willingly  listen  to  any  prayers 
that  have  not  the  rhythm  of  the  English  Church 
service.  They  seem  to  imagine  that  Christ  came 
to  supply  the  materials  for  a  liturgy ;  they  tell  you 
that  not  for  the  world  would  they  go  into  a  build- 
ing where  heretic  services  are  held  ;  and  it  is 
only  with  a  cough  or  a  stammer  that  they  can 
apply  the  word  "  church  '*  to  any  organization  of 
believers  beyond  their  own  communion.  So  you 
meet  now  and  then  with  Trinitarian  Christians,  of 
other  sects,  who  speak  with  the  same  scorn  of  a 
possible  title  in  Unitarians  to  the  Christian  name. 
And  I  have  had  the  misfortune  of  knowing  not  a 
very  few  Unitarians,  who  think  themselves  rep- 
resentatives of  the  body  and  devoted  to  its  inter- 
ests, that  draw  their  chief  delight,  one  would  think, 
from  exposing  absurdities  in  Trinitarian  creeds, 
and  questioning  the  sincerity  of  any  Trinitarian 
pi'^'.ty. 

All  this  is  equally  distant  from  the   religious 


OTy  Religion  Corrupted,  279 

spirit.  This  is  pride  of  opinion,  passion  for  a 
party,  sectarianism,  bigotry,  imagining  itself  the 
sacred  force  and  bond  of  society.  A  man  is  not 
called  on  to  separate  himself  from  one  denomi- 
nation, and  to  try  to  attach  himself  to  all  denomi- 
nations, —  flitting  everywhere  and  alighting  no- 
where, —  in  order  to  show  his  freedom  from 
prejudice  and  largeness  of  heart.  But  he  must 
learn  that  Church  order  is  not  religion,  sacraments 
are  not  religion,  conclusions  about  the  Trinity  are 
not  religion,  criticisms  of  the  Trinity  and  defences 
of  the  Divine  Unity  are  not  religion.  These  are 
bark  and  roots  and  fibre  and  twigs.  Religion  is 
fruit.  Peaches  cannot  grow  except  on  a  peach 
branch  and  from  the  juices  of  that  wood.  But 
pears  do  not  require  such  a  stock.  And  what  if 
God  is  raising,  not  peaches  only,  but  plums  and 
grapes  and  pears  also,  in  the  vineyard  of  the 
Spirit,  and  ordains  that  there  shall  be  different 
kinds  of  wood  —  varying  theologies  and  church- 
cultures — in  order  that  there  may  be  various 
kinds  of  products  in  the  realm  of  grace  ?  If  you 
belong  to  the  apple-department  of  the  orchard, 
keep  there  and  try  to  be  as  sound  and  savory  as 
possible.  But  if  you  make  it  your  business  to 
vilify  the  other  trees,  and  to  prove  that  the  peaches 
are  heretic  and  hateful  in  the  sight  of  God,  you 
prove  yourself  a  worm-eaten  apple,  a  crab-apple  ; 
your  own  juices  have  lost  their  savor;  what  you 
call  your  religion  is  only  a  sign  of  your  worthless- 
ness,  and  it  is  fit  only  to  be  trodden  under  foot 
of  men. 


28o        Salt  that  has  lost  its  Savor; 

One  cannot  read  the  biographies  and  diaries  of 
consecrated  men  without  seeing  —  often  with  ter- 
ror, too  —  how  full  the  higher  ranges  of  Christian 
ambition  are  of  peril  to  the  simplicity  of  the  heart's 
feeling  and  trust.  I  was  reading,  a  few  days  ago,  a 
statement  in  a  biography  of  the  celebrated  Pascal, 
one  of  the  lights  of  French  literature,  one  of  the 
clearest  thinkers  and  sincerest  devotees  the  Church 
of  Christ  has  produced.  He  was  a  Catholic  and 
belonged  to  the  order  of  the  Jansenists,  and  flour- 
ished in  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
His  whole  time  was  devoted  to  religious  inquiries 
and  meditations,  and  in  order  to  mortify  the  flesh, 
he  wore  a  girdle  armed  with  iron  spikes  under  his 
robe,  which  he  drove  in  upon  his  ribs  as  often  as 
he  thought  himself  in  need  of  sharp  practical  ad- 
monitions. In  his  infirmities  he  was  attended  by 
his  sister,  who  was  tenderly  and  proudly  devoted 
to  him.  But  he  assumed  harshness  of  manners 
towards  her,  to  repel  her,  if  possible,  from  love  of 
him,  and  argued  calmly  with  her  —  this  profound 
and  noble  thinker  in  other  respects  —  that  God 
has  the  claim  to  the  whole  of  human  love,  and 
that  to  set  apart  any  of  it  for  objects  that  must 
change  and  die  is  folly  and  a  sin  !  Thus  may 
religious  love  be  corrupted,  till  it  must  be  called 
an  infection,  not  a  grace  ;  a  dreadful  disease, 
not  the  bounding  of  health  through  the  soul. 
The  passions  of  Pascal  were  not  malignant  ;  if 
they  had  been,  he  would  have  turned  by  his  mis- 
take of  logic  into  a  systematic  and  remorseless 


oVy  Religion  Corrupted,  281 

persecutor.  But  his  mistake  cramped,  if  it  did 
not  curdle,  his  heart ;  and  he  believed  himself 
under  the  dominion  of  the  most  exalted  principle 
when  he  was  harboring  a  parody  on  Christian 
love,  torturing  a  spirit  that  had  a  right  to  his  sym- 
pathy and  affection,  and  upholding  a  sentiment 
as  divine  which  was  fit,  not  for  the  dignified  an- 
swer of  logic,  but  only  to  be  trodden  under  foot  of 
men. 

So  sometimes  you  see  persons  in  whom  religion 
is  the  stimulant  of  self-righteousness.  Instead  of 
humbling  themselves  before  God,  they  count  them- 
selves distinguished  before  God  by  their  offices 
and  offerings  of  outward  piety.  They  build  up  a 
factitious  set  of  duties  and  services,  which  have 
no  relation  to  the  substantial  work  of  life  and  the 
.natural  display  of  character,  and  they  seem  to  be- 
lieve themselves  worthy  in  the  Infinite  sight  for 
their  punctilious  discharge  of  them.  I  do  not 
like  to  treat  this  class  of  spirits  at  much  length, 
for  I  do  not  like  to  be  critical  or  to  indulge  in 
terms  of  satire.  But  the  danger  in  this  direction 
is  attested  by  the  frequency  and  the  unsparing 
force  of  the  denunciation  of  it  in  the  four  Gos- 
pels. Self-righteousness,  pride,  —  not  masked  as 
religion,  but  the  pride  of  deformed  religion,  dis- 
tance from  simplicity  and  natural  tenderness  of 
soul,  —  is  the  chief  evil  in  the  instruction  of  Jesus. 
The  sins  to  which  the  Church  is  exposed  are  more 
terribly  condemned  by  the  Saviour  than  the  sins 
to  which  the  world  is  exposed ;  not  because  he 
had  a  word  of  toleration  for  the  last,  but  that  he 


282       Salt  that  has  lost  its  Savor ; 

saw  how  the  first  may  be  more  deadly  within  and 
more  destructive  without. 

Even  prayer,  Jesus  teaches  us,  may  be  an  of- 
fence, when  it  is  not  a  mockery,  when  it  is  sincere. 
Read  the  sketch  of  the  Pharisee  and  PubHcan  to 
learn  how,  when  prayer  is  the  natural  prostration 
of  humility,  or  trust,  or  filial  confidence,  the  con- 
fession of  a  sense  of  God's  nearness,  the  offering 
of  a  sacrifice  in  submission,  or  penitence,  or  de- 
vout joy,  the  asking  of  good  to  others,  the  longing 
for  the  widening  of  good-will  and  the  spirit  of 
Christ  over  the  world,  —  what  more  gracious,  what 
more  sweet,  what  more  precious  as  an  expression 
of  the  soul,  as  an  experience  under  the  Infinite 
gaze !  But  when  it  is  the  Pharisee's  prayer,  —  "I 
thank  thee  that  I  am  not  as  other  men,  I  fast 
twice  in  the  week,  I  pay  tithes  of  all  I  possess ;  I 
am  not  a  half-outcast  like  this  Publican," — how- 
ever it  be  veiled  or  varied  in  modern  expression, 
whoever  ofiers  it  or  cherishes  it,  though  it  conceal 
itself  from  the  forms  of  address  to  God  and  show 
itself  only  in  Church  pride,  estimates  of  theology, 
Church  annals  and  traditions,  particular  Church 
sacraments  and  worship,  it  is  from  beneath,  and 
it  goes  downward  in  the  universe,  not  upward.  It 
is  worldliness  dressed  as  piety,  exclusiveness  aping 
love,  salt  that  has  lost  its  cleansing  virtue  and  is 
only  bitter,  —  not  of  the  ocean  quality,  but  Dead- 
Sea  salt,  the  salt  of  Sodom. 

Do  you  ask  what  test  you  can  have  to  prove 
the  health  of  your  religious  spirit,  and  to  show 
whether  or  not  the  heart  is  under  its  control? 


or,  Religio7i  Corrupted.  283 

Perhaps  the  figure  which  the  Saviour  used  will 
help  us.  Salt,  when  pure,  is  good  in  relation  to 
something  else.  We  do  not  eat  it  immediately. 
We  use  it  to  prepare  and  preserve  other  articles. 
Without  it  the  world  would  die ;  but  nobody- 
spreads  a  table  with  it  and  invites  his  friends  to  a 
feast  of  it,  or  makes  a  private  meal  of  it  Its  of- 
fice is  to  penetrate  and  flavor  and  save  the  nat- 
ural products  of  the  w^orld. 

Your  religion,  brethren,  is  not  a  distinct  ser- 
vice, the  subscription  of  a  creed,  the  learning  of 
a  catechism,  the  payment  of  a  church-tax,  the  de- 
votion to  a  party  or  ecclesiastical  order,  the  pas- 
sion for  a  hierarchy  or  liturgy  or  theology ;  no, 
nor  distinct  spiritual  exercises  chiefly,  for  the  sake 
of  honoring  or  propitiating  God.  Your  religion 
is  a  permeating  element  in  the  natural  order  and 
affections  and  duties  of  life.  It  must  hide  in  the 
spirit  as  salt  in  the  bread,  and  show  itself  in  the 
whole  outline  and  effluence  of  the  nature.  It  is 
to  make  your  truthfulness  more  secure  and  in- 
stinctive, your  integrity  more  firm,  your  thoughts 
more  pure,  your  desires  more  chaste,  your  friend- 
ship more  delicate ;  your  will  more  loyal  to  God 
in  the  shock  and  surprises  of  temptation  ;  your 
use  of  money  more  charitable  and  less  selfish  or 
careless ;  your  home  more  sweet  and  cheerful ; 
your  care  of  your  children  more  wise  and  tender ; 
your  estimate  of  life  as  a  scene  of  discipline  more 
and  more  thoughtful,  yet  not  oppressive  and 
gloomy  ;  your  reverence  of  God  spontaneous,  as 
the  power  that  upholds  the  universe ;  your  love 


284       Salt  that  has  lost  its  Savor; 

of  God  an  inward  brooding  emotion,  as  the  Spirit 
that  made  you  and  is  ready  to  fill  your  heart  with 
grace  and  peace. 

Religion  adds  nothing,  Christianity  adds  noth- 
ing, to  the  natural  duties  of  the  soul  and  the  will. 
It  interprets  them,  and  offers  aid  to  fulfil  them 
under  its  interpretation.  The  Church  is  not  for 
itself,  but  to  help  you  make  life  thus  sound  and 
sweet.  Prayer,  written  or  extempore,  vocal  or 
secret,  is  to  assist  you  thus  in  life.  Theologies, 
bishops,  ministers,  biographies,  sects,  commenta- 
ries, cathedrals.  Church  festivals  and  fasts,  every- 
thing that  belongs  to  the  outward  order  of  the 
Church  and  its  history,  is  to  help  you  for  this  work 
and  attainment.  And  whatever  cramps  your  char- 
ity, and  makes  God  seem  partial,  and  narrows 
your  fellowship,  and  arouses  passion  and  bitter- 
ness in  the  name  of  religion,  is  fit  only  to  be  trod- 
den under  foot.  The  study  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, of  the  life  and  spirit  of  your  Lord,  is  thus 
to  set  you  fairly  before  the  work  of  life,  animate 
you  for  it,  support  you  in  it,  and  prepare  you  for 
wider  and  deeper  life  when  the  veil  lifts. 

Keep  your  religion  pure.  Do  not  confound  it 
with  your  theology  or  with  any  Church  pretension 
or  with  pride  or  dogmatism.  Do  not  degrade  it  to 
the  level  of  your  passions,  and  so  corrupt  life  at  the 
springs  ;  but  remember  this  is  the  test  which  dis- 
tinguishes the  true  salt  from  that  which  has  lost 
its  savor :  "  God  is  love,  and  he  that  dwelleth  in 
love  dwelleth  in  God  and  God  in  him." 

1862. 


XVIII. 

LESSONS  FEOM  THE  SIERRA  NEVADA. 

"  I  will  lift  up  mine  eyes  unto  the  hills,  from  whaice  cometh 
my  help." — Psalm  cxxi.  i. 

IN  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for  June  our  great 
naturahst,  Mr.  Agassiz,  reports  an  anecdote 
of  the  eminent  German  geologist,  Von  Buch,  one 
of  the  founders  of  that  recent  and  majestic  sci- 
ence. Mr.  Agassiz,  when  a  young  man,  was 
acquainted  with  him,  and  knew,  by  personal  inter- 
course, that  the  explorer  into  the  mysteries  of  the 
earth's  formation  had  the  poet's  feeling  and  the 
worshipper's  heart.  All  great  natural  phenomena 
impressed  him  deeply.  **  On  one  occasion,"  says 
Mr.  Agassiz,  '^  it  was  my  good  fortune  to  make 
one  of  a  party  from  the  *  Helvetic  Association  for 
the  Advancement  of  Science '  on  an  excursion  to 
the  eastern  extremity  of  the  Lake  of  Geneva.  I 
well  remember  the  expressive  gesture  of  Von 
Buch  as  he  faced  the  deep  gorge  through  which 
the  Rhone  issues  from  the  interior  of  the  Alps. 
While  others  were  chatting  and  laughing  about 
him,  he  stood  for  a  moment  absorbed  in  silent 
contemplation  of  the  grandeur  of  the  scene,  then 


286      Lessons  from  the  Sierra  Nevada. 

lifted  his  hat  and  bowed  reverently  before  the 
mountains." 

This,  brethren,  is  the  spirit  out  of  which  the 
most  efficient  knowledge  grows,  this  is  the  spirit 
which  acquaintance  with  the  works  of  God  should 
ever  deepen  and  feed.  I  meet  you  to-night 
that  we  may  together  bow  reverently  before  the 
mountains  that  guard  the  eastern  frontier  of 
our  State,  with  whose  majesty  I  have  been  per- 
mitted, of  late,  to  form  an  intimate  acquaintance. 
Love  of  nature  has  its  root  in  wonder  and  venera- 
tion, and  it  issues  in  many  forms  of  practical 
good.  There  can  be  no  abounding  and  ardent 
patriotism  where  sacred  attachment  to  the  scenery 
of  our  civil  home  is  wanting ;  and  there  can  be 
no  abiding  and  inspiring  religious  joy  in  the  heart 
that  recognizes  no  presence  and  touch  of  God  in 
the  permanent  surroundings  of  our  earthly  abode. 

The  great  bane  of  modern  life  is  materialism, — 
the  divorce  of  spirit  from  power,  order,  bounty, 
and  beauty  in  our  thought  of  the  world.  We 
look  upon  nature  as  a  machine,  a  play  of  forces 
that  run  of  necessity  and  of  course.  We  do  not 
bow  before  it  with  wonder  and  awe  as  the  mani- 
festation of  a  present  all-animating  will  and  art. 
Whatever  leads  us  to  such  feelings  towards  ^he 
universe  puts  us  on  the  road  to  Christian  faith, 
helps  character,  and  lifts  the  plane  of  the  privi- 
lege of  life.  I  believe  that  if,  on  every  Sunday 
morning  before  going  to  church,  we  could  be 
lifted  to  a  mountain-peak  and  see  a  horizon  line 


Lessons  from  the  Sierra  Nevada.      287 

of  six  hundred  miles  enfolding  the  copious  splen- 
dor of  the  light  on  such  a  varied  expanse  ;  or  if 
we  could  look  upon  a  square  mile  of  flowers 
representing  all  the  species  with  which  the  Crea- 
tive Spirit  embroiders  a  zone  ;  or  if  we  could  be 
made  to  realize  the  distance  of  the  earth  from  the 
sun,  the  light  of  which  travels  every  morning  twelve 
millions  of  miles  a  minute  to  feed  and  bless  us, 
and  which  the  force  of  gravitation  pervades  with- 
out intermission  to  hold  our  globe  calmly  in  its 
orbit  and  on  its  poise  ;  if  we  could  fairly  perceive, 
through  our  outward  senses,  one  or  two  features 
of  the  constant  order  and  glory  of  nature,  our 
materialistic  dulness  would  be  broken,  surprise 
and  joy  would  be  awakened,  we  should  feel  that 
we  live  amid  the  play  of  Infinite  thought ;  and 
the  devout  spirit  would  be  stimulated  so  potently 
that  our  hearts  would  naturally  mount  in  praise 
and  prayer. 

I  cannot  but  feel  that  it  is  a  religious  privilege 
to  ride,  in  the  long  hours  of  a  summer's  day,  from 
the  vast  plain  in  which  they  subside,  up  the  slopes 
to  the  crest  of  a  mighty  mountain-wall.  Our 
thoughts  are  soon  led  to  the  tremendous  forces 
that  sleep  around  us.  Over  the  rolling  outworks 
we  pass  till,  shut  in  by  the  bubbles  of  the  plain, 
we  approach  the  long  firm  buttresses  and  com- 
mence to  conquer  their  accHvities.  The  path 
winds  with  the  tortuous  banks  of  canons,  and 
twists  to  overcome  steep  cliffs,  and  we  look  off 
upon  the  sharp  slopes  or  precipitous  sides  of  the 


288      Lessons  from  the  Sierra  Ne%mda. 

opposite  heights.  Now  and  then  the  awful  gutter 
of  a  land-slide  opens  its  gray  desolation,  and  the 
immense  boulders  that  once  ground  their  way  in 
thunder  through  the  night  storm,  with  a  momen- 
tum that  makes  human  artillery  seem  petty,  lie 
half  crushed  below,  amid  the  ravage  of  their 
wrath.  Soon  w^e  see  a  clean-washed  cliff  that 
calmly  tells  us  what  the  anatomy  of  the  globe  is 
thousands  of  feet  below  the  plains.  Higher  up  a 
spire  breaks  through  tilted  strata,  to  give  us  a 
more  intense  conception  of  the  energy,  ages  ago, 
of  the  central  fire. 

A  visitor  to  the  mountains  toils  up  the  grade 
which  skill  has  smoothed  slowly  against  the  con- 
stant pull  of  gravitation.  It  is  a  great  achieve- 
ment if,  with  noble  horses,  he  can  mount  eight 
miles  an  hour  towards  the  pass,  so  persistent 
and  despotic  is  the  force  that  holds  the  globe 
compact ;  and  the  mountains  are  trophies  of 
triumph  over  that  force.  They  sprang  to  their 
height  under  the  whip  of  the  internal  flame,  and 
there  they  maintain  themselves  in  spite  of  the 
protest  of  the  force  that  seeks  to  pull  them  down. 
They  are  not  dead  mounds  of  matter.  They  are 
nervous  tide-lines  of  tremendous  power.  The 
crests  of  the  Alps,  the  cones  of  the  Cordilleras, 
the  awful  wedges  and  spliiitei*s  of  the  sovereign 
Himalaya,  are  the  cold  stifi'  spray  of  a  power  that 
burst  from  the  planet*s  breast  and  still  hides  there. 
The  perpetual  cold  tells  of  heat.  The  seeming 
granite  permanence  is  the  confession  of  passion 


Lessons  from  the  Sierra  Nevada,      289 

and  unrest.  The  incalculable  weight  of  the  hills 
is  the  sign  of  a  fury  before  which  all  weight  is  a 
toy.  Amid  such  powers  we  are  living.  Over 
such  deeps  of  mysterious  wrath  our  order  is  built, 
our  life  is  shaped  ;  and  all  this  force  is  in  the 
hand  of  God.  His  will  is  the  fountain  of  it,  his 
thought  is  the  guide  of  it.  What  are  we  before 
one  mountain  and  its  subterranean  fire?  And 
yet  what  is  the  bulk  and  weight  of  the  mountain 
to  the  mass  of  the  globe?  And  the  globe  is 
calm.  It  moves  even,  patient,  peaceful  in  its 
furious  sweep  through  immensity.  Apd  sun  and 
planets,  all  suns  and  all  worlds,  all  their  weight 
and  fires  and  speed,  are  upheld  by  his  spirit,  are 
moved  and  guided  and  curbed  by  the  invisible 
potency  of  his  sovereign  will.  Truly  does  the 
Psalm  say  :  "  Thou  dost  set  fast  the  mountains  by 
thy  strength  ;  being  girded  with  power."  Truly 
did  the  prophet  say :  He  "  hath  measured  the 
waters  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand,  and  meted  out 
heaven  with  the  span,  and  comprehended  the  dust 
of  the  earth  in  a  measure,  and  weighed  the  moun- 
tains in  scales,  and  the  hills  in  a  balance  ;  .  .  .  . 
behold,  he  taketh  up  the  isles  as  a  very  little 
thing."  The  mountains  are  measures  by  which 
we  may  begin  to  form  conceptions  of  Omnipo- 
tence. They  lead  us  up  from  matter  to  mind. 
They  teach  faith  in  invisible  force.  The  worHs 
of  the  Hebrew  hymn  are  still  true  at  the  base  of 
the  Sierra,  as  at  the  base  of  Lebanon  ;  "  I  will 
lift  up  mine  eyes  unto  the  hills  from  whence  com- 
12  s 


290      Lessons  from  the  Sierra  Nevada. 

eth  my  help.  My  help  cometh  from  the  Lord, 
who  made  heaven  and  earth." 

But  it  is  not  the  power  of  the  Infinite  alone 
that  is  suggested  as  we  ride  up  a  great  mountain 
slope  :  his  goodness,  his  bounty,  is  equally  mani- 
fest to  the  open  eye.  It  is  very  important  in  our 
religious  education  or  awakening  to  obtain  and 
keep  healthy  and  substantial  convictions  of  the 
love  of  the  Almighty,  so  that  that  word  shall  not 
represent  a  puny  and  pietistic  sentiment  alone. 
Whatever  enlarges  our  conception  of  the  opulence 
of  nature,  and  makes  us  connect  its  affluence  with 
the  Creative  Spirit,  increases  the  possible  force 
upon  our  hearts  of  the  central  doctrine  of  Chris- 
tianity, —  the  love  of  God. 

Mounting  from  the  plains  to  the  heights,  we 
cannot  help  noticing  the  variety  in  the  produc- 
tiveness of  nature.  Each  quality  of  soil  has  its 
peculiar  element  of  nutrition,  and  supports  pecul- 
iar products.  Each  change  of  average  tempera- 
ture, though  slight,  is  marked  by  new  kinds  of 
flowers  and  shrubbery.  Every  gradation,  every 
cranny  and  chink,  is  veined,  often  is  bursting,  with 
life  or  bloom.  We  go  up  from  the  gray  hot 
sweeps  or  billows  of  the  plain  into  coolness,  into 
green,  into  a  magnificent  forest  of  fir,  into  a  glori- 
ous belt  of  the  sugar  pine,  lovelier  than  the  cedars 
of  Lebanon,  into  the  regions  of  pure  water  and  cold 
foamy  cascades,  that  sometimes  show  a  stream 
of  winding  whiteness  for  half  a  mile  on  a  desolate 
cliff,  and  lastly  into  the  healthful,  blazing  charity 


Lessons  from  the  Sierra  Nevada.      291 

of  the  eternal  snow  !  What  is  the  fit  condensa- 
tion into  speech  of  all  this  good  but  the  language 
of  the  Psalm  :  "  Thou  openest  thine  hand  and 
satisfiest  the  desire  of  every  living  thing  ?  "  Na- 
ture produces  nothing.  God  is  the  sole  Creator. 
The  variety  of  the  productiveness  of  a  mountain 
slope  is  a  slight  measure  of  his  copious  bounty. 
Not  a  sparrow  falls  to  the  ground,  not  a  grass- 
blade  grows,  without  your  Father.  Follow  up 
the  slopes  of  a  mountain  like  Chimborazo,  in 
Equador,  or  Illimani,  in  Bolivia,  and  it  is  as  if 
God  opened  his  hand  under  your  eye  to  reveal 
the  breadth  of  his  bounty.  Its  base  is  washed  by 
a  tropic  sea ;  its  crest  pierces  the  clean  cold  azure 
with  arctic  snow.  And  between  is  almost  every 
type  of  the  floral  beauty  and  the  vegetable  riches 
of  the  climates  of  the  earth  !  This  is  the  exhi- 
bition in  one  picture  of  the  munificence  of  the 
Creator.  All  this  is  for  man,  for  his  education, 
for  his  delight,  for  his  food,  for  his  equipment,  for 
his  coronation,  through  the  comprehension  and 
the  right  use  of  it  all,  with  glory  and  honor. 
And  then  remember  that  this  exhibition  is  but  of 
one  mountain  on  this  little  earth.  Think  of  the 
immense  expanse  and  varieties  of  worlds  that 
spot  the  night-fields  with  climates  and  scenery 
and  conditions  of  life  so  different  from  ours,  and 
try  to  imagine  then  what  is  the  range  of  the  crea- 
tiveness  of  God. 

Ah,  brethren,  while  there  is  a  mountain  in  the 
land  that  is  clothed  with  green  and  embroidered 


292      Lessons  from  the  SieiTa  Nevada. 

with  flowers,  say  not  that  the  love  of  God  is  a 
mystic  sentiment  which  cannot  be  reached  by 
the  calm  and  healthy  understanding.  The  over- 
whelming revelations  of  it  are  the  difficulty. 
"  Ask  now  the  beasts,  and  they  shall  instruct 
thee ;  and  the  fowls  of  the  air,  and  they  shall  tell 
thee ;  or  speak  to  the  earth,  and  it  shall  teach 
thee,  and  the  fishes  of  the  sea  shall  declare  unto 
thee."  It  is  when  we  attempt  to  bound  or  de- 
fine the  love  of  God  that  our  difficulty  begins. 
*'  Such  knowledge  is  too  wonderful  for  me ;  it  is 
high,  I  cannot  attain  unto  it." 

And  at  a  little  distance  all  this  grandeur,  all 
this  power,  all  this  fertility,  are  transfigured  into 
pure  beauty.  There  is  no  color  on  the  globe 
comparable  with  that  which  robes  a  mountain  at 
a  sufficient  distance,  however  rugged  and  deso- 
late the  near  aspect  may  be.  One  of  the  most 
accurate  artistic  students  of  nature  that  has  ever 
lived,  Mr.  Ruskin,  tells  us  that  one  cannot  know 
what  tenderness  of  color  is,  who  has  not  seen  the 
rose  and  purple  hues  of  a  great  mountain  twenty 
miles  away.  Mr.  Emerson,  in  an  exquisite  pas- 
.sage  of  poetry,  has  expressed  and  adorned  the 
same  fact  thus  :  — 

"  A  score  of  airy  miles  will  smooth 
Rough  Monadnock  to  a  gem." 

Move  off  to  a  distance  of  threescore  airy 
miles,  when'  the  atmosphere  is  favorable,  and 
what  glorious  beauty  will  the  line  of  the  Sierra 
wear  1     I  have  seen  the  vast  bulwark  thus  from 


Lessons  from  the  Sierra  Nevada,      293 

the  bank  of  the  Sacramento  in  the  spring,  and 
once  from  the  summit  of  Diablo,  when  they 
seemed,  though  on  the  earth,  not  of  it.  All  their 
rocks,  their  gorges,  their  precipices,  their  streams, 
their  desolate  patches  which  the  earth-avalanches 
had  torn,  their  cliffs,  their  forests,  their  nooks  and 
dells,  their  tortuous  roads,  all  their  bulk  and  sav- 
ageness  reduced  to  smooth  splendor  of  color! 
First,  a  purple  bar  of  foothills  just  beyond  the 
dim  edge  of  the  immense  prairie ;  then  a  middle 
slope  of  vague  and  tender  green ;  and  then, 
crowning  all,  the  golden  snow  (gold  at  that  dis- 
tance) in  an  unceasing  stretch  of  two  hundred 
miles !  What  a  vision  through  the  clear  air, 
when  we  sweep  thus  the  complete  physiognomy 
of  their  summits,  —  here  a  symmetrical  peak, 
there  a  long  ridge  sawed  into  sharp  spikes  of 
creamy  whiteness,  and  soon  a  huge  climbing 
mound  of  brilliance,  showing  where  the  Carson 
turnpike  leads  the  adventurers  after  silver,  that 
cannot  be  polished  or  frosted  to  such  beauty  as 
sheathes  its  own  tremendous  dome  !   . 

Next  to  the  Himalaya,  in  Hindostan,  that  ridge 
bears  the  most  noble  name  of  all  the  mountain- 
chains  on  the  globe,  —  "  Sierra  Nevada."  And 
when  we  see  it  sixty  miles  off,  under  clouds  that 
mimic  its  pinnacles  and  swells,  it  shows  like  a 
vision  from  another  world,  like  the  street  and 
wall  of  the  New  Jerusalem.  Only  the  colors  are 
in  reverse  order,  as  befits  the  reflection  of  heav- 
enly glory  in  an  earthly  medium.     First  comes 


294      Lessons  from  the  Sierra  Nevada, 

the  amethyst,  midway  the  beryl,  and  on  the 
heights,  not  at  the  base,  the  pure  gold,  as  it  were 
transparent  glass. 

And  all  this  splendor  is  part  of  the  bounty  and 
love  of  God.  What  a  small  part  indeed  of  the 
glory  of  this  one  mountain-range  we  see  at  the 
most  propitious  point  of  our  neighborhood  !  The 
Sierra  runs  along  the  whole  eastern  hne .  of  our 
State,  nay,  it  stretches  southward  through  all 
Mexico  and  Central  America ;  it  is  part  of  the 
Andes  that  wall  the  western  coast  of  the  Southern 
Continent;  it  ends  in  the  cliffs  of  Cape  Horn, 
washed  by  the  fury  of  the  cold  Antarctic  waves  ; 
its  line  is  closed  on  the  north  in  the  spires  of 
rock  and  ice  that  spring  near  Behring's  Straits- 
All  the  way  along,  from  Polar  Seas  through  the 
Equator  to  Polar  Seas  again,  it  w^ears  such  beauty, 
seen  from  distant  points.  The  glory  of  morning, 
the  richer  glory  of  evening,  breaks  and  dies  upon 
it  in  hues  which  no  artist  can  ever  counterfeit,  on 
every  cloudless  day.  Is  not  part  of  the  object  of 
this  opulence  to  lead  those  who  see  or  contemplate 
it  to  bow  before  the  riches  of  God's  art  and  good- 
ness ?  What  if  the  earth  had  been  sombre  in  its 
drapery?  What  if  the  eclipse  had  been  our  com- 
mon tone  of  light?  Ah,  brethren,  let  us  recog- 
nize the  Father's  goodness  in  the  cheer  and  joy 
of  the  natural  beauty,  and  let  us  think  of  the 
nearer  presence  of  our  Maker  with  solemn  delight. 
He  asks  us  to  think  of  him,  not  as  robed  in  thun- 
der and  awe,  but  as  hidden  in  light  and  glory.    It 


Lessons  from  the  Sierra  Nevada,      295 

is  only  now  and  then  that  a  mountain  is  wrapped 
like  Sinai.     Their  drapery  is  splendor,  not  gloom. 

"  Since  o'er  thy  footstool  here  below 

Such  radiant  gems  are  thrown, 
O,  what  magnificence  must  glow, 

Great  God,  about  thy  throne ! 
So  brilliant  here  these  drops  of  light, 

There  the  full  ocean  rolls  —  how  bright ! " 

We  often  speak  of  a  mountain-wall.  The 
ancient  founders  of  cities  built  walls  to  protect 
them  against  foes.  The  Chinese  attempted  thus 
to  barricade  their  kingdom  against  aggression 
and  intercourse.  Riding  up  slowly  the  slopes  of 
Sierra,  one  feels  the  grandeur  of  the  tremendous 
barrier  that  has  been  upheaved  along  the  western 
edge  of  a  continent.  The  range,  of  which  it  is 
part,  stretches  almost  unbroken  from  Cape  Horn 
to  the  North  Russian  territory,  nearly  nine  thou- 
sand miles.  For  some  hundreds  of  miles  it  runs 
along  the  borders  of  our  State,  and  for  hundreds 
more  through  American  soil  in  Oregon  and  Wash- 
ington. 

And  yet  the  deeper  and  more  inspiring  thought 
that  visits  us  as  we  rise  and  gradually  conquer  its 
"  aerial  shelves,"  is  that  it  is  not  a  barrier,  in  spite 
of  its  crags  of  thirteen  thousand  feet,  and  its 
passes  of  upreared  granite  a  mile  and  a  half  from 
the  level  of  the  sea.  There  are  passages  over 
and  through  its  tremendous  ruggedness. 

"  The  mighty  pyramids  of  stone, 

That,  wedge-like,  cleave  the  desert  airs, 
When  nearer  seen  and  better  known, 
Are  but  gigantic  flights  of  stairs 


296      Lessons  from  the  Sierra  Nevada. 

"  The  distant  mountains,  that  uprear 
Their  sohd  bastions  to  the  skies, 
Are  crossed  by  pathways,  that  appear 
As  we  to  higher  levels  rise." 

It  has  been  said,  as  part  of  the  philosophy  of 
history,  that  "  mountains  interposed  make  enemies 
of  nations,  that  had  else,  like  kindred  drops,  been 
mingled  into  one."  In  our  country  it  is  not  so. 
Where  the  great  barriers  are  upheaved  there  is 
really  no  wall.  The  Virginia  beyond  the  moun- 
tains is  one  with  the  life  and  spirit  of  the  nation. 
The  Alleghanies  of  Tennessee  support  a  loyal 
sentiment  on  both  their  slopes,  and  they  carry  the 
inspiration  of  that  sentiment  through  their  cool 
air  to  Northern  Georgia  and  Alabama.  The 
Rocky  Mountains  do  not  lie  in  the  pathway  of  a 
loyal  national  passion,  and  the  Sierras  prove  no 
wall  against  it.  Over  every  mountain-chain,  from 
Aroostook,  in  Maine,  to  the  heights  that  divide  our 
bay  from  the  Pacific,  one  sentiment  sweeps  con- 
tinuous, one  devotion,  one  hope,  one  speech,  one 
prayer.  There  is  no  chain  of  hills  or  river-bank, 
or  any  other  natural  line  or  limit,  to  bound  the 
district  of  the  rebellion,  and  suggest  the  propriety 
of  a  new  nationality,  while  it  offers  itself  as  the 
bulwark  of  it.  All  that  might  have  seemed  nat- 
urally perilous  to  the  immensity  of  our  republic 
has  been  easily  conquered.  Stages  cross  the 
Sierra,  and  wind  up  and  over  the  lower  slopes  of 
Pike's  Peak,  and  traverse  the  region  between  the 
sources  of  the  Columbia  and  the  Missouri.  It  is  a 
line  of  sentiment  only,  cutting  the  tracks  of  rivers, 


Lessons  from  the  Sierra  Nevada,      297 

that  has  threatened  the  nation,  and  that  we  must 
conquer  by  colonization.  Nothing  that  God  has 
made  interrupts  our  unity.  And  when  the  spirit 
that  has  subdued  the  mountains,  and  hewn  passes 
of  easy  grade  out  of  their  heights  for  American 
energy  to  move  through,  the  spirit  of  free  and 
honorable  toil,  the  spirit  that  honors  God  in  hon- 
oring man,  —  when  this  spirit  goes  down  into  the 
tropic  lowlands  of  the  nation,  and  applies  its  vigor 
to  them,  and  recasts  the  tone  of  society  around 
them,  the  nation  will  again  be  one  ;  the  hills  and 
the  central  valley  stream  will  be  in  harmony,  and 
the  one  flag  of  the  republic  will  be  supported  on 
every  height  and  every  delta,  by  a  common  feel- 
ing, faith,  and  aim.  By  the  war  and  its  tendency 
to  extirpate  slavery,  God  is  cutting  for  us  this  path 
through  the  frowning  moral  barrier  that  was  up- 
heaved by  Satan  to  rupture  our  social  geography 
and  our  peace. 

But  let  us  turn  now  to  some  of  the  moral  les- 
sons which  reflection  upon  heights  opens  to  us. 

The  mass  of  the  mountains,  according  to  geol- 
ogists, is  very  slight  compared  with  the  extent 
of  the  plain  surfaces  of  the  globe.  If  the  Pyr- 
enees were  levelled  and  spread  out  upon  France, 
the  effect  would  be  to  make  the  general  level  of 
the  country  but  a  rod  or  two  higher;  and  the 
whole  matter  of  the  Alps  shovelled  over  Western 
Europe  would  raise  the  land  only  twenty-one  and 
a  half  feet. 

Yet  how  would  the  glory  of  the  lowlands  be 
13* 


298      Lessons  from  the  Sierra  Nevada, 

lost  if  the  hills  were  not  there  from  which  the  pas- 
tures, the  gentler  slopes,  and  the  plains  could  be 
seen  !  There  would  be  a  loss  not  only  of  the  sub- 
limity of  the  mountains,  but  of  the  real  beauty 
and  picturesqueness  of  the  level  grounds. 

The  analogy  of  mountain  heights  with  life  seems 
to  me  at  this  point  to  be  quite  striking.  The 
amount  of  genius  in  the  world,  in  contrast  with  the 
vast  mass  of  common  intelligence  and  capacity 
is  very  slight.  Suppose  it  were  possible  to  dis- 
tribute it  into  an  average,  —  to  pour  it  like  pure 
spirit  into  the  general  liquid  of  lower  grade,  —  the 
proof  of  mental  power  in  the  mass  would  hardly 
be  perceptibly  raised.  But  how  much  of  the  glory 
of  life,  even  for  the  common  intellect,  depends  on 
the  few  lofty  geniuses  of  history!  How  much 
more  value  and  beauty  there  is  in  ordinary  human 
lot  because  we  can  rise  to  the  height  of  a  Dick- 
ens's sympathy  with  it,  and  then  look  around  upon 
the  byways  and  into  the  nooks  and  out  upon  the 
plains  of  our  nature !  How  much  more  interest 
there  is  in  history  because  of  the  eminent  appre- 
ciation of  portions  of  the  past  we  may  all  gain 
from  the  intellect  and  sympathetic  learning  of  a 
Scott !  What  dependence  we  have  upon  minds 
like  Newton  and  Herschell,  to  know  anything  of 
the  glory  of  the  sky,  or  upon  Humboldt  and  Agas- 
siz,  to  comprehend  the  science  and  grandeur  of 
the  globe !  How  much  less  resource  and  value 
there  would  be  in  our  homes  if  it  were  not  for  our 
ability  to  go  up  on  the  ridges  of  Shakespeare's 


Lessons  from  the  Sierra  Nevada,      299 

genius,  and  climb,  by  the  rich  books  that  a  few 
dollars  will  place  on  our  tables,  up  to  the  eleva- 
tion whence  the  historians,  the  artists,  and  the 
supreme  thinkers  have  seen  our  life,  and  the  land- 
scape of  eternal  truth ! 

All  pure  genius,  brethren,  is  beneficent  as  the 
mountains.  It  invites  up.  God  gives  its  capacity 
to  very  few.  But  the  power  of  appreciating  its 
work,  and  service  he  gives  to  thousands  of  us. 
The  highest  genius  always  comes  close  to  the 
mass  of  humanity  and  blesses  it,  and  mentally  we 
can  all  have  a  mountain-range  in  our  life.  By 
cultivating  an  interest  in  a  few  good  books  which 
contain  the  results  of  the  toil  or  the  quintessence 
of  the  genius  of  some  of  the  most  gifted  thinkers 
of  the  world,  we  need  not  live  on  the  marsh  and 
in  the  mists.  The  slopes  and  ridges  invite  us. 
Our  feet  may  be  supported,  now  and  then,  above 
our  natural  elevation,  and  we  may  gain  new  views, 
truer  relations  between  objects,  grander  lights,  and 
a  wider  horizon  of  mysterious  beauty.  By  that 
power  of  reading  which  God  has  endowed  upon 
you,  he  enables  you  to  say  if  you  will,  "  I  will  lift 
up  mine  eyes  unto  the  hills,  from  whence  cometh 
my  help." 

And  now,  going  higher  still  on  the  grade  of 
imagery,  let  us  see  what  symbols  our  subject  fur- 
nishes for  private  experience.  There  are  such 
things  as  mountain  principles  and  mountain 
thoughts  in  the  individual  life.  That  soul  is  in 
a  lamentable  condition  that  lives  only  on   the 


300      Lessons  from  the  Sierra  Nevada, 

flats  of  worldly  and  mercenary  customs  or  on  the 
wretched  level  of  paltry  pleasures.  And  there  is 
no  soul  that  must  needs  live  thus  ;  for  in  every 
nature  there  are  districts  of  higher  thoughts,  and 
latitudes  of  soaring  aspirations,  in  the  region  of 
which,  if  it  pleases,  the  mind  may  pitch  its  home. 
The  trouble  is  that  we  do  not  keep  company  with 
our  own  best  moods  and  seasons.  Our  experience 
with  them  is  like  our  acquaintance  with  the  moun- 
tains when  we  seek  recreation,  — a  flying  visit  in 
the  lull  of  business,  or  under  pressure  of  ill- 
health,  —  a  swift  introduction  to  their  glories,  for- 
gotten soon  after  our  return. 

There  are  many  souls  in  which  God  creates 
mountains  anew,  every  year. 

He  stirs  the  deeps  of  their  hearts  by  some  pun- 
gent visitations  of  the  Spirit,  and  straightway  they 
send  up  aspirations  for  something  better,  —  holy 
desires  and  momentary  resolves  that  tower  a  great 
way  over  the  poor  plain  on  which  they  had  lived. 
But  alas  I  there  is  no  vigor  in  them,  for  they  sink 
back  almost  as  soon  as  they  appear.  It  is  as  if 
nature  should  heave  up,  time  after  time,  a  sum- 
mit like  Diablo,  or  Tamal  Pais  that  guards  the 
Golden  Gate,  or  one  of  the  pinnacles  of  the  Sierra, 
and  see  it  fall  back  continually  into  thin  Hquid 
deeps.  The  true  soul  has  these  visitations  from 
God,  these  moral  upheavals  of  its  own  essence, 
and  they  stiffen  at  once  into  principles  ;  they  be- 
come lasting  landmarks ;  and  from  their  summits 
and  sides  the  freshening  streams  that  make  their 
lives  fruitful  flow  down. 


Lessons  from  the  Sierra  Nevada,      301 

But  the  principal  trouble  with  people  in  Christian 
lands  is  that  they  will  not  practically  recognize  the 
high  experiences  and  upland  truths  that  do  stand 
in  the  background  of  their  souls.  They  shut  their 
eyes  to  them ;  they  keep  their  faces  from  them. 
They  lay  out  the  little  plantation  of  their  expe- 
rience in  some  secluded  nook  of  a  valley,  or 
hedged  by  thick  groves  of  social  custom,  and  try 
to  forget  that  there  is  anything  great  and  high  for 
which  life  is  given  and  towards  which  it  should 
struggle.  Comfort,  pleasure,  and  self  are  the 
objects  of  their  activity,  and  they  keep  themselves 
from  looking  after  any  higher  plane  of  experience. 

Most  of  us  that  fail,  fail  in  this  way.  We  can- 
not be  brought  to  say,  "  I  will  lift  up  mine  eyes 
unto  the  hills,  from  whence  cometh  my  help." 
Those  hills  do  stand  amid  the  scenery  of  our 
spirits,  —  we  know  they  do,  —  the  mighty  sum- 
mits of  moral  truth,  the  elevations  we  have  stood 
on  in  some  great  season  of  vision,  the  spiritual 
laws  of  Jesus  Christ  which  our  souls  cannot  deny, 
the  examples  of  pure  devotedness  which  our 
memory  has  appropriated,  A—  there  they  stand 
within  the  boundary  of  our  own  consciousness, 
and  we  will  not  live  upon  their  slopes  or  within 
their  range.  We  burrow  in  the  glens,  or  we  hud- 
dle together  out  upon  the  moors,  and  then,  some- 
times, we  wonder  that  there  is  no  more  grandeur 
in  life,  and  that  its  prospect  is  so  poor. 

No  grandeur  can  there  be  in  life,  no  noble 
prospect  can  stretch   out  before  us,  unless  we 


302      Lessons  from  the  Sier7'a  Nevada. 

pitch  the  tent  high  up,  or  unless  we  keep  the 
lofty  places  of  our  spiritual  estate  as  peaks  of 
vision  for  frequent  visits.  Socrates  lived  high  up, 
and  when  he  was  in  doubt  or  perplexity  he  went 
up  higher  to  see  how  life  looked  from  the  lonely 
summit  with  its  keen  pure  air.  Paul  lived  high 
up,  and  he  walked  by  the  sight  granted  to  him 
on  the  noble  eminences.  Jesus  dwelt  high  up. 
We  read  that,  at  times,  he  sent  the  disciples  away 
and  retired  into  a  mountain  apart  to  pray,  and 
when  the  evening  was  come  he  was  there  alone. 
The  mountain  to  which  he  retired  was  inward 
more  than  outward.  It  was  not  only  in  some 
rare  evening  hours  that  he  secluded  himself  thus. 
More  than  any  other  son  of  man  he  dwelt  on  the 
heights,  and  saw  the  glorious  lights  of  God's  love 
on  the  plains,  and  the  wide-arching,  all-embracing, 
heaven-embosoming  nature. 

We  are  not  to  live  outside  the  world,  but  in  it, 
feehng  its  passions,  working  in  its  interests,  striv- 
ing to  do  our  duty  in  its  trials.  And  yet  large 
districts  of  our  life  and  feeling  should  be  above 
the  world,  on  the  Sierra  heights  from  which  the 
world  and  our  toil  and  our  home  cares  and  our 
surroundings  look  noble,  precious,  bathed  in  light. 

Believe,  O  soul,  that  art  placed  in  this  mys- 
terious and  glorious  universe,  that  God  formed 
thee  from  his  Spirit  for  no  mean  purpose,  but  for 
a  destiny  nobler  than  thy  highest  aspirations  have 
pointed  to.  Believe  in  the  best  thoughts  and 
whisperings   that  visit  thy  heart.     If  thou   dost 


Lessons  from  the  Sierra  Nevada,      303 

catch  at  times  some  gleams  of  the  divinings  of 
charity,  of  the  glory  of  sacrifice,  of  the  grandeur 
of  faith,  of  the  sky-piercing  power  of  prayer,  like 
mountain-peaks  jutting  through  fogs,  or  slopes 
afar  off  in  the  horizon  light,  believe  in  them  with 
more  enthusiasm  than  in  the  stupid  dust  of  the 
beaten  roads ;  make  your  home  where  they  will 
inspire  you,  and  where  you  can  easily  ascend 
their  slopes,  and  see  the  world  from  a  higher 
point,  and  feel  the  everlasting  presence  of  God. 
BeHeve  in  them,  for  they  are  the  mountain-prin- 
ciples and  altar-piles  of  life.  Breathe  the  air 
that  is  freshened  on  their  heights.  Drink  of  the 
streams  that  flow  fresh  from  the  channels  in  their 
sides.  And  in  every  season  of  doubt,  temptation, 
or  despair,  lift  up  thine  eyes  unto  the  hills,  from 
whence  cometh  thy  help. 

1863. 


XIX. 

LIVING  WATER  FROM  LAKE  TAHOE. 

"  Let  us  go  over  unto  the  other  side  of  the  lake."  —  Luke  viii. 

22. 

"Thou  art  worthy,  O  Lord,  to  receive  glory,  and  honor,  and 
power  ;  for  thou  hast  created  all  things,  and  for  thy  pleasure  they 
are  and  were  created."  —  Revelation  iv.  ii. 

WHEN  one  is  climbing  from  the  west,  by  the 
smooth  and  excellent  road,  the  last  slope 
of  the  Sierra  ridge,  he  expects,  from  the  summit 
of  the  pass,  which  is  more  than  seven  thousand 
feet  above  the  sea,  higher  than  the  famous  pass 
of  the  Splugen,  or  the  little  St.  Bernard,  to  look 
off  and  down  upon  an  immense  expanse.  He 
expects,  or,  if  he  had  not  learned  beforehand,  he 
would  anticipate  with  eagerness,  that  he  should 
be  able  to  see  mountain  summits  beneath  him, 
and  beyond  these,  valleys  and  ridges  alternating 
till  the  hills  subside  into  the  eastern  plains. 
How  different  the  facts  that  await  the  eye  from 
the  western  summit,  and  what  a  surprise  !  We 
find,  on  gaining  what  seems  to  be  the  ridge,  that 
the  Sierra  range  for  more  than  a  hundred  miles 
has  a  double  line  of  jagged  pinnacles,  twelve  or 
fifteen  miles  apart,  with  a  trench  or  trough  be- 


Living  Water  from  Lake  Tahoe.      305 

tvveen,  along  a  portion  of  the  way,  that  is  nearly 
fifteen  hundred  feet  deep  if  we  measure  from  the 
pass  which  the  stages  traverse,  which  is  nearly 
three  thousand  feet  deep  if  the  plummet  is  dropped 
from  the  highest  points  of  the  snowy  spires. 

Down  into  this  trench  we  look,  and  opposite 
upon  the  eastern  wall  and  crests,  as  we  ride  out 
to  the  eastern  edge  of  the  western  summit.  In  a 
stretch  of  forty  miles  the  chasm  of  it  bursts  into 
view  at  once,  half  of  which  is  a  plain  sprinkled  with 
groves  of  pine,  and  the  other  half  an  expanse  of 
level  blue  that  mocks  the  azure  into  which  its 
guardian  towers  soar.  This  is  Lake  Tahoe,  an 
Indian  name  which  signifies  "  High  Water."  We 
descend  steadily,  by  the  winding  mountain-road, 
more  than  three  miles  to  the  plain,  by  which  we 
drive  to  the  shore  of  the  lake ;  but  it  is  truly 
Tahoe,  "  High  Water."  For  we  stand  more  than 
a  mile,  I  believe  more  than  six  thousand  feet 
above  the  sea,  when  we  have  gone  down  from  the 
pass  to  its  sparkling  beach.  It  has  about  the 
same  altitude  as  the  Lake  of  Mount  Cenis  (6,280 
feet)  in  Switzerland,  and  there  is  only  one  sheet 
of  water  in  Europe  that  can  claim  a  greater  eleva- 
tion (Lake  Po  de  Vanasque,  7,271  feet).  There 
are  several,  however,  that  surpass  it  in  the  great 
mountain-chains  of  the  Andes  and  of  Hindostan. 
The  Andes  support  a  lake  at  12,000  feet  above 
the  sea,  and  one  of  the  slopes  of  the  Himalaya 
in  Thibet,  encloses  and  upholds  a  cup  of  crystal 
water,  15,600  feet  above  the  level  of  the  Indian 

T 


3o6      Living  Water  from  Lake  Tahoe, 

Ocean,  covering  an  area,  too,  of  250  square  miles. 
I  had  supposed,  however,  that  within  the  immense 
limits  of  the  American  Republic,  or  north  of  us 
on  the  continent,  there  is  no  sheet  of  water  that 
competes  with  Tahoe  in  altitude  and  interest. 
But  in  Mariposa  County  of  our  State  there  are 
two  lakes,  both  small,  —  one  8,300  feet,  and  the 
other  1 1,000  feet,  —  on  the  Sierra  above  the  line 
of  the  sea. 

To  a  wearied  frame  and  a  tired  mind  what  re- 
freshment there  is  in  the  neighborhood  of  this  lake  I 
The  air  is  singularly  searching  and  strengthening. 
The  noble  pines,  not  obstructed  by  underbrush, 
enrich  the  slightest  breeze  with  aroma  and  music. 
Grand  peaks  rise  around,  on  which  the  eye  can 
admire  the  sternness  of  everlasting  crags  and  the 
equal  permanence  of  delicate  and  feathery  snow. 
Then  there  is  the  sense  of  seclusion  from  the 
haunts  and  cares  of  men,  of  being  upheld  on  the 
immense  billow  of  the  Sierra,  at  an  elevation  near 
the  line  of  perpetual  snow,  yet  finding  the  air 
genial,  and  the  loneliness  clothed  with  the  charm 
of  feeling  the  sense  of  the  mystery  of  the  mountain 
heights,  part  of  a  chain  that  links  the  two  polar 
seas,  and  of  the  mystery  of  the  water  poured  into 
the  granite  bowl,  whose  rim  is  chased  with  the 
splendor  of  perpetual  frost,  and  whose  bounty, 
flowing  into  the  Truckee  stream,  finds  no  outlet 
into  the  ocean,  but  sinks  again  into  the  land. 

Everything  is  charming  in  the  surroundings  of 
the  mountain  lake ;  but  as  soon  as  one  walks  to 


Living  Waterfront  Lake  Tahoe,      307 

the  beach  of  it,  and  surveys  its  expanse,  it  is  the 
color,  or  rather  the  colors,  spread  out  before  the 
eye,  which  hold  it  with  the  greatest  fascination. 
I  was  able  to  stay  eight  days  in  all,  amidst  that 
calm  and  cheer,  yet  the  hues  of  the  water  seemed 
to  become  more  surprising  with  each  hour.  The 
lake,  according  to  recent  measurement,  is  about 
twenty-one  miles  in  length,  by  twelve  or  thirteen 
in  breadth.  There  is  no  island  visible  to  break 
its  sweep,  which  seems  to  be  much  larger  than  the 
figures  indicate.  And  the  whole  of  the  vast  sur- 
face, the  boundaries  of  which  are  taken  in  easily 
at  once  by  the  range  of  the  eye,  is  a  mass  of  pure 
splendor.  When  the  day  is  calm,  there  is  a  ring 
of  the  lake,  extending  more  than  a  mile  from 
shore,  which  is  brilliantly  green.  Within  this  ring 
the  vast  centre  of  the  expanse  is  of  a  deep,  yet 
soft  and  singularly  tinted  blue.  Hues  cannot  be 
more  sharply  contrasted  than  are  these  perma- 
nent colors.  They  do  not  shade  into  each  other ; 
they  lie  as  clearly  defined  as  tjne  courses  of  glow- 
ing gems  in  the  wall  of  the  New  Jerusalem.  It 
is  precisely  as  if  we  were  looking  on  aa  immense 
floor  of  lapis  lazuli  set  within  a  ring  of  flaming 
emerald. 

The  cause  of  this  contrast  is  the  sudden  change 
in  the  depth  of  the  water  at  a  certain  distance 
from  shore.  For  a  mile  or  so  the  basin  shelves 
gradually,  and  then  suddenly  plunges  off  into 
unknown  depths.  The  centre  of  the  lake  must 
be  a  tremendous  pit.     A  very  short  distance  from 


3o8      Living  Water  from  Lake  Tahoe. 

where  the  water  is  green,  and  so  transparent  that 
the  clean  stones  can  be  seen  on  the  bottom  a 
hundred  feet  below,  the  blue  water  has  been 
found  to  be  fourteen  hundred  feet  deep ;  and  in 
other  portions  soundings  cannot  be  obtained  with 
a  greater  extent  of  line. 

What  a  savage  chasm  the  lake-bed  must  be  1 
Empty  the  water  from  it  and  it  is  pure  and  unre- 
lieved desolation.  And  the  sovereign  loveliness 
of  the  water  that  fills  it  is  its  color.  The  very 
'savageness  of  the  rent  and  fissure  is  made  the 
condition  of  the  purest  charm.  The  lake  does 
not  feed  a  permanent  river.  We  cannot  trace 
any  issue  of  it  to  the  ocean.  It  is  not,  that  we 
know,  a  well-spring  to  supply  any  large  district 
with  water  for  ordinary  use.  It  seems  to  exist 
for  beauty.  And  its  peculiar  beauty  has  its  root 
in  the  peculiar  harshness  and  wildness  of  the 
deeps  it  hides. 

Brethren,  this  question  of  color  in  nature, 
broadly  studied,  leads  us  quickly  to  contemplate 
and  adore  the  love  of  God.  If  God  were  the 
Almighty  chiefly,  —  if  he  desired  to  impress  us 
most  with  his  omnipotence  and  infinitude,  and 
make  us  bow  with  dread  before  him,  how  easily 
the  world  could  have  been  made  more  sombre, 
how  easily  our  senses  could  have  been  created  to 
receive  impressions  of  the  bleak  vastness  of  space, 
how  easily  the  mountains  might  have  been  made 
to  breathe  terror  from  their  cliffs  and  walls,  how 
easily  the  general  effect  of  extended  landscapes 


Living  Waterfront  Lake  Tahoe.       309 

might  have  been  monotonous  and  gloomy !  If 
religion  is,  as  it  has  so  often  been  conceived  to 
be,  hostile  to  the  natural  good  and  joy  which  the 
heart  seeks  instinctively,  —  if  sadness,  if  melan- 
choly, be  the  soul  of  its  inspiration,  and  misery  for 
myriads  the  burden  of  its  prophecy,  —  I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  the  vast  deeps  of  space  above  us  would 
have  been  tinted  with  tender  azure,  hiding  their 
awfulness  \  I  do  not  believe  that  storms  would 
break  away  into  rainbows,  and  that  the  clouds  of 
sunset  would  display  the  whole  gamut  of  sensuous  ' 
splendor ;  I  do  not  believe  that  the  ocean  would 
wear  such  joy  for  the  eye  over  its  awful  abysses ; 
I  do  not  believe  that  the  mountains  would  crown 
and  complete  the  general  loveliness  of  the  globe. 
I  love  the  Quaker  simplicity  and  calm.  The 
Quaker  conception  of  life  and  worship  is  part  of 
the  protest  of  the  Spirit  against  errors  and  poverty 
in  the  Church.  But  God  is  not  an  infinite  Quaker, 
though  he  is  the  infinite  Friend.  The  world  is 
not  clothed  with  russet,  and  the  flowers  are  not 
gray,  and  the  winds  are  not  forbidden  to  play  on 
the  forest  harps.  I  bow  to  the  strength  of  Cal- 
vinistic  character,  and  its  service  in  the  education 
of  the  human  race  in  the  rugged  .  resistance  to 
tyranny  and  the  rugged  assertion  of  the  holiness 
of  God.  But  nature  is  not  Calvinistic  in  color, 
and  the  tone  of  her  landscapes  is  not  that  of  the 
pictures  of  Salvator  Rosa,  as  it  would  be  if  the 
Genevan  theology  represented  the  central  truth  of 
the  Spirit.     I  know  how  much  devotion  to  truth 


310      Living  Water  from  Lake  Tahoe, 

and  how  much  self-sacrifice  are  represented  by 
the  cowl  and  girdle  of  the  friar  and  by  the  simple 
bonnet  of  the  nun.  But  there  is  only  here  and 
there  a  barren  waste  that  wears  the  drapery  of 
the  monastery ;  the  harmonies  of  natural  beauty 
run  far  up  into  the  chords  of  cheer  and  joy. 

The  world  is  strangely  garnished  by  the  Spirit 
if  the  truth  of  the  Spirit  is  gloomy  and  ascetic. 
The  color  of  the  world  is  part  of  the  Gospel  of 
the  world.  It  is  an  utterance  of  love ;  it  is  a 
prophecy  of  grace.  God  hides  his  power  and 
veils  his  awfulness  in  opulent  beauty;  and  the 
most  ragged  and  desolate  wastes  are  chosen  to 
display  the  rarest  beauty.  Think  of  the  moun- 
tain precipices  and  crests  as  illustrating  this  prin- 
ciple. We  call  them  utterly  barren.  We  think 
of  them  as  obstacles  and  hindrances  to  human 
power  and  purposes.  But  think  of  the  loss  to 
human  nature  if  the  summits  of  Mont  Blanc  and 
the  Jungfrau  could  be  levelled,  and  their  jagged 
sides,  sheeted  with  snow  and  flaming  with  ame- 
thyst and  gold,  should  be  softened  by  the  sun 
and  tilled  for  vines  and  corn !  Pour  out  over 
them  every  year  all  the  wine  that  is  wrung  from 
the  vineyards  of  Italy  and  France,  and  what  a 
mere  sprinkling  in  comparison  with  the  floods  of 
amber,  of  purple,  and  of  more  vivid  and  celestial 
flames  with  which  no  wine  was  ever  pierced,  that 
are  shed  over  them  by  one  sunrise,  or  that  flow 
up  their  cold  acclivities,  contrary  to  the  law  of 
gravitation,  at  each  clear  sunset !     These  are  the 


crops  which 


Living  Waterfront  ^ake  T^ich^e,      ^l 
vhich  the  intellect  andUieS^  find  w^^ing  ^"Z 


and  waving  for  them,  without  an^\efioi^J^  car^'^^         t    y- 
mortal  culture,  on  the  upper  desoiation^f  the^^.^       ^ 

"  So  call  not  waste  that  barren  cone  \        ^/"  yv> 


Above  the  floral  zone,  ""x     '  ^<1 

Where  forests  starve ; 

It  is  pure  use;  — 
What  sheaves  like  those  which  here  we  glean  and  bind 

Of  a  celestial  Ceres  and  the  muse  ? " 

The  flowers  of  nature  do  nothing  to  robe  the 
globe  in  splendor  in  comparison  with  the  rocks 
and  snows  of  the  uncultivated  hills.  God  chooses 
the  awful  things  to  show  off  his  tenderness.  Is 
not  this  a  theological  fact  and  lesson  as  well  as 
a  fact  of  science  ?  Indeed,  the  most  tender  influ- 
ence that  we  are  acquainted  with  in  nature  flows 
from  the  utmost  desolation  that  we  know  anything 
about  I  mean  the  full  moonlight.  How  soft, 
how  soothing,  how  kindly,  how  patient,  how  pitiful, 
it  seems !  Yet  science  tells  us  of  nothing  so 
blasted,  so  terrible,  as  the  moon  itself.  Sahara 
on  this  globe  is  almost  a  garden  to  it.  The  sage- 
brush plains  between  the  Sierra  and  Salt  Lake 
are  a  conservatory  in  contrast.  There  are  pits 
in  it  nearly  twenty  thousand  feet  deep.  There  are 
mountains  of  scarred,  scorched  stone  on  it  almost 
as  high.  There  seems  to  be  no  water  on  its  sur- 
face and  no  air  swathing  its  frightful  solitudes. 
One  astronomer  imagined  that  it  was  the  hell  of 
our  planet.  And  yet  perhaps  its  light  is  the  more 
soft  and  tender  to  us  because  of  this  barrenness. 


J/ 


312      Livmg  Water  from  Lake  Tahoe, 

One  of  its  chief  uses,  probably,  is  to  publish  the 
graciousness  of  the  Infinite  to  our  eyes  and  senti- 
ment. Compassion  and  love  stream  to  us  out  of 
the  sky  from  the  bosom  of  seeming  terror.  So 
God  swathes  his  power  with  grace,  and  by  light 
and  color  tells  us  that  he  is  not  the  Almighty 
simply,  but  the  Almighty  Father. 

And  the  color  of  the  lake  is  a  word  from  this 
•natural  Gospel.  It  covers  the  chasms  and  wounds 
of  the  earth  with  splendor.  It  is  what  the  name 
of  the  lovely  New  Hampshire  lake,  Winnipiseogee, 
indicates,  "  The  Smile  of  the  Great  Spirit." 

And  this  color  is  connected  with  purity.  The 
green  ring  of  the  lake  is  so  brilliant,  the  blue  en- 
closed by  it  is  so  deep  and  tender,  because  there 
is  no  foulness  in  the  water.  The  ^^g^  of  the 
waves  along  all  the  beach  is  clean.  The  granite 
sand,  too,  often  dotted  with  smooth-washed  jas- 
pers and  garnets  and  opaline  quartz,  is  especially 
bright  and  spotless.  In  fact,  the  lake  seems  to  be 
conscious,  and  to  have  an  instinct  against  con- 
tamination. Several  streams  pour  their  burden 
from  the  mountains  into  it;  but  the  impurities 
which  they  bring  down  seem  to  be  thrown  back 
from  the  lip  of  the  larger  bowl,  and  form  bars  of 
sediment  just  before  they  can  reach  its  sacred 
hem.  Dip  from  its  white-edged  ripples,  or  from 
its  calm  heart,  or  from  the  foam  that  breaks  over 
its  blue  when  the  wind  rouses  it  to  frolic,  and  you 
dip  what  is  fit  for  a  baptismal  font,  —  you  dip 
purity  itself. 


Living  Water fro7n  Lake  Tahoe.      313 

There  is  not  a  soul  on  the  earth,  probably,  that 
is  so  pure,  through  grace,  as  this  mountain  goblet 
is  by  nature.  A  heart  that  rejects  evil  so  spon- 
taneously, a  heart  whose  agitation  is  so  clear,  a 
heart  whose  joy  is  so  unstained,  would  be  a  heart 
that  had  attained  perfection.  It  would  be  fit  for 
heaven  ;  nay,  it  would  be  in  heaven  wherever  it 
might  dwell.  We  must  look  for  such  spirits  only 
in  the  dwellers  of  the  upper  and  calmer  world, 
so  far  are  we  yet,  on  this  earth,  the  most  of  us, 
the  best  of  us,  from  reaching  the  level  of  nature ! 
It  is  only  as  we  are  pure  that  we  are  in  accord 
with  nature,  and  none  of  us  are  pure  enough  to 
be  in  full  harmony  with  it.  "  The  wicked  are  like 
the  troubled  sea,  when  it  cannot  rest ;  whose 
waters  cast  up  mire  and  dirt.''  But  it  is  only  the 
thin  shore-waves  of  the  stormy  sea  that  cast  up 
uncleanness ;  its  deeps  in  the  tempest  throw  up 
no  scum.  The  heart  of  man  is  more  corrupt 
than  any  figure  from  ocean  storms  can  express. 
And  the  purity  of  a  lily's  leaf,  of  a  tree's  robe  of 
blossoms,  of  the  light  of  a  star,  of  the  sunset 
radiance  on  mountain  snow,  has  never  yet  been 
reached  in  any  character  save  his  who  "  w^xs 
tempted  in  all  points  like  as  we  are,  yet  without  sin." 

This  purity  of  nature  is  part  of  the  revelation 
to  us  of  the  sanctity  of  God.  It  is  his  character 
that  is  hinted  in  the  cleanness  of  the  lake  and  its 
haste  to  reject  all  taint.  It  is  his  character  that  is 
published  in  the  spotless  heavens  and  the  unsoiled 
snow  and  the  glory  of  morning  on  mountain- 
14 


314      Living  Water  from  Lake  Tahoe, 

peaks.  The  purity  of  nature  is  the  expression  of 
joy,  and  it  is  a  revelation  to  us  that  the  Creator's 
'holiness  is  not  repellent  and  severe.  God  tries  to 
win  you  by  his  Spirit,  which  clothes  the  world 
with  beauty,  to  trust  him,  to  give  up  your  evil  that 
you  may  find  deeper  communion  with  him,  and  to 
recognize  the  charm  of  goodness  which  alone  is 
in  harmony  with  the  cheer  and  the  purity  of  the 
outward  world. 

1  must  speak  of  another  lesson,  connected  with 
religion,  that  was  suggested  to  me  on  the  borders 
of  Lake  Tahoe.  It  is  bordered  by  groves  of 
noble  pines.  Two  of  the  days  which  I  was  per- 
mitted to  enjoy  there  were  Sundays.  On  one  of 
them  I  passed  several  hours  of  the  afternoon  in 
listening,  alone,  to  the  murmur  of  the  pines,  while 
the  waves  were  gently  beating  the  shore  with  their 
restlessness.  If  the  beauty  and  purity  of  the  lake 
were  in  harmony  with  the  deepest  religion  of  the 
Bible,  certainly  the  voice  of  the  pines  was  also  in 
chord  with  it. 

The  oracles  of  Greece  are  connected  with  the 
oak.  And  the  lightness,  the  gayety,  the  wit,  the 
suppleness,  of  the  Greek  mind  find  in  the  voice  of 
the  oak  their  fit  representatives ;  for  the  oak, 
though  so  stubborn  and  sinewy  in  its  substance, 
is  cheery  and  gay  in  its  tone  when  the  wind  strikes 
it.  But  the  evergreen  trees,  though  so  much 
softer  in  their  stock,  are  far  deeper  and  more 
serious  in  their  music ;  and  the  evergreen  is  the 
Hebrew  tree.     The  Cedar  of  Lebanon  is  the  tree 


Living  Water  from  Lake  Tahoe,      315 

most  prominent  when  we  think  of  Palestine  and 
the  clothing  of  its  hills.  As  I  lay  and  listened 
to  the  deep,  serious,  yet  soft  and  welcome  sound 
of  those  pines  by  the  lake  shore,  I  thought  of  the 
inspiration  of  old  which  had  wakened  such  last- 
ing and  wonderful  music  from  the  great  souls  of 
Israel.  When  we  want  knowledge  or  the  quick- 
ening of  intellect,  we  enter  the  groves  of  Greece ; 
when  we  would  find  quickening,  when  we  would 
feel  the  deeps  of  the  soul  appealed  to,  we  enter  the 
deeper  and  more  sombre  woods  of  Palestine.  The 
voice  of  the  pine  helps  us  to  interpret  the  Hebrew 
genius.  Its  range  of  expression  is  not  so  great 
as  that  of  the  oak  or  the  elm  or  the  willow  or  the 
beech,  but  how  much  richer  it  is  and  more  welcome 
in  its  monotony !  How  much  more  profoundly 
our  souls  echo  it !  How  much  more  deeply  does 
it  seem  to  be  in  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  the 
air !  What  grandeur,  what  tenderness,  what  pa- 
thos, what  heart-searchingness  in  the  swells  and 
cadences  of  its  "  Andante  Maestoso,"  when  the 
wind  wrestles  with  it  and  brings  out  all  its  soul ! 

So  the  Hebrew  stock  was  formed  by  Providence 
to  yield  a  richer  tone,  a  deeper  music,  naturally, 
than  any  other  stock  could  give  forth.  And  out 
of  these  Moses  towers  like  a  mighty  pine,  and 
David  as  a  giant  cedar,  and  the  author  of  Job 
as  a  stalwart  fir,  and  Jeremiah  as  a  tall,  sad  hem- 
lock, and  Isaiah  as  a  stately  arbor-vitae,  to  pour 
out  such  strains  as  never  before  had  been  wakened 
for  mortal  hearing  by  the  Spirit^s  breath. 


3i6      Living  Waterfront  Lake  Tahoe. 

In  the  Twenty-third  Psalm  we  hear  the  tender 
whisper  of  the  air  in  a  pine;  in  the  Ninetieth,  the 
strong  autumn  breath  through  its  branches ;  in 
the  Eighteenth  the  trumpet  of  tempest  blows  blast 
after  blast  through  its  boughs,  and  bends  its  trunk 
while  it  roars  with  sublime  passion.  We  cannot 
tell  in  the  forest  how  much  of  the  tone  we  hear  is 
of  the  wind  and  how  much  of  the  tree.  Neither 
can  we  tell  in  the  great  passages  of  the  Bible 
what  proportion  of  the  music  is  of  God  and  what 
proportion  is  of  man.  Those  lofty  souls  were  vis- 
ited by  inspiration.  Holy  men  spake  as  they  were 
moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  But  it  was  their 
faculties,  their  spirits,  that  were  thus  moved  as 
branches  by  the  breeze ;  it  was  men  that  spake, 
we  must  remember ;  and  their  quality,  their  per- 
sonality, their  limitations,  as  well  as  the  grandeur 
and  veracity  of'  the  Spirit,  w^as  in  all  their  utter- 
ance, and  breathes  from  their  pages  still. 

I  read  under  the  pines  of  Lake  Tahoe,  on  that 
Sunday  afternoon,  some  pages  from  a  recent 
English  work  that  raises  the  question  of  inspira- 
tion. Is  the  Bible  the  word  of  God,  or  the  words 
of  men?  It  is  neither.  It  is  the  word  of  God 
breathed  through  the  words  of  men,  inextricably 
intertwined  with  them  as  the  tone  of  the  wind 
with  the  quality  of  the  tree.  We  must  go  to  the 
Bible  as  to  a  grove  of  evergreens,  not  asking 
for  cold,  clear  truth,  but  for  sacred  influence,  for 
revival  to  the  devout  sentiment,  for  the  breath  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  not  as  it  wanders  in  pure  space, 


Living  Water  from  Lake  Tahoe,      317 

but  as  it  sweeps  through  cedars  and  pines.  No 
book  is  so  deep,  so  rich,  so  tender,  so  awakening 
as  the  Bible  after  the  freest  criticism  has  been  ex- 
pended upon  it.  Nothing  can  take  the  tone  out 
of  it.  It  will  be  as  true,  as  deep,  as  uplifting,  to 
the  hearts  of  centuries  to  come,  however  cultured, 
as  the  voice  of  the  pines  will,  in  future  ages,  be 
the  deepest  natural  music  that  the  human  ear  can 
receive. 

And  now  that  the  evergreens  of  the  lake  shore 
have  carried  us,  by  one  law  of  association,  to 
Palestine  and  the  Bible,  let  me  ask  you  to  bear  in 
mind,  further,  that  the  shore  and  waves  of  a 
mountain  lake  are  connected  forever  with  the 
deepest  religion  of  the  Bible  and  of  the  world. 
The  sea  of  Galilee,  as  it  is  often  called  in  Scrip- 
ture, is  a  lake,  its  true  name  being  "the  lake  of 
Gennesareth.'^  The  earliest  ministry,  and  many 
of  the  most  impressive  incidents  of  the  experience 
of  Jesus,  are  associated  with  it.  The  Mount  of 
the  Beatitudes  is  not  far  off  from  its  bank.  Ca- 
pernaum was  on  its  shore.  Magdala  also,  where 
one  of  the  Biblical  Marys  lived,  and  from  which 
our  word  Magdalen  is  derived,  was  in  part  washed 
by  its  waves. 

When  we  walk  by  the  bright  sand  of  Tahoe, 
and  see  the  fishermen's  nets  which  have  just  dis- 
gorged their  beautiful  prey,  we  think  how  the 
Christian  Church  began ;  we  think  of  one  walk- 
ing on  the  beach  of  a  smaller  lake,  and  calling 
Andrew  and  Philip,  and  Simon  Peter  and  James 


3i8      Living  Water  from  Lake  Tahoe. 

and  John,  from  their  rude  toil,  to  be  "  fishers  of 
men/'  And  as  we  look  upon  the  unlettered  men 
that  earn  their  bread  by  the  fisheries  of  Tahoe,  we 
ask  ourselves  again,  what  must  have  been  the 
power  in  the  soul  of  Jesus  that  has  caused  the 
great  cathedrals  of  the  world  to  rise  in  honor  of 
craftsmen  by  nature,  not  distinguished  from  those 
who  ply  their  calling  under  the  shadows  of  the 
Sierra?  We  sail  out  upon  our  inland  lake,  and 
we  notice,  around  one  lovely  cove  of  it,  a  farm  on 
which  grain  is  just  lifting  its  prophecies  of  green. 
And  we  think  then  of  the  mystic  crop  that  has 
sprung  up  from  the  seeds  scattered  on  the  bor- 
ders of  the  lake  of  Galilee,  when  Jesus  watched 
the  sowing  and  spoke  his  parable.  The  farmer 
that  sowed  that  day  expected  his  harvest  from 
that  very  soil  in  the  early  summer.  It  has  sprung 
up  a  million  fold,  in  hearing  hearts  of  every  race 
and  century.  We  enjoy  the  beauty  of  some  of 
the  wild-flowers  of  the  neighborhood,  in  a  visit  to 
our  mountain  gem ;  and  the  thought  comes  to  us 
of  the  lily-text  from  which,  near  the  lake  of  Gali- 
lee, the  deepest  sermon  of  the  Gospel  was  un- 
folded. We  sail  out  upon  our  sheet  of  water 
when  it  is  placid,  and  there  is  hardly  breeze 
enough  to  fill  the  sails.  Suddenly  a  flaw  from  a 
cold  snowy  canon  strikes  us,  and  crowds  the  ves- 
sel into  peril.  I  was  out  in  one  of  them  in  a  little 
boat,  that  could  scarcely  live  in  the  quick  turbu- 
lence of  the  water.  And  we  think  of  him  who 
slept  in  the  hinder  part  of  a  boat  on  a  pillow  in 


Living  Waterfront  Lake  Takoe.      319 

such  a  tempest,  and  who  arose  and  rebuked  the 
lake  billows  from  a  divine  inward  calm,  saying 
simply,  "  Peace,  be  still ! "  We  look  across  the 
water  to  cliffs  of  bare  rock  opposite  belonging  to 
another  Territory,  and  we  remember  that  it  was 
on  the  other  side  of  Gennesareth,  amid  the  deso- 
lation of  the  mountains  on  the  east,  that  the 
demoniacs  were  healed  by  the  potent  pity  of 
Christ ;  and  then  we  think  of  the  more  wonderful 
miracles  his  Spirit  has  wrought  in  these  latter 
years  in  heahng  the  maniac  mind  and  restoring  it 
to  friends  and  home.  We  sail  out  upon  the  lake 
at  night,  and  the  scene  disposes  us  to  read  prop- 
erly the  story  of  his  walking  on  the  waves  to  the 
terrified  disciples,  —  symbol  of  the  light  and  com- 
fort which  the  visit  of  Christ  has  brought  in 
countless  instances  to  hearts  tossed  on  the  billows 
of  affliction.  We  look  at  a  distant  shore  in  the 
early  morning,  and  we  think  of  the  last  meal  of 
the  Saviour  with  his  Apostles.  "  For  "  the  Last 
Supper"  was  not  the  last  meal.  This  was  a 
morning  repast,  after  the  resurrection,  on  the 
shore  of  the  lake  of  Gennesareth.  Peter  had  re- 
turned to  his  occupation  as  fisherman  in  Galilee, 
when  the  Crucifixion  took  place  in  Jerusalem. 
He  was  in  his  boat  on  the  lake  by  the  bank  of 
which  he  was  first  called,  when  just  after  dawn  a 
voice  came  to  him  from  one  standing  on  the  shore. 
John  was  with  him  in  the  boat,  and  recognized 
the  tone  and  accents  of  Christ.  Peter  girt  his 
fisher's  coat  about  him,  plunged  into  the  lake, 


320      Living  Water  from  Lake  Tahoe, 

and  swam  to  land,  about  three  hundred  feet  dis- 
tant. Their  Lord  had  already  prepared  a  fire  of 
coals  on  which  fish  was  broiling  for  them  ;  and  on 
the  borders  of  the  lake  at  sunrise,  Simon  Peter, 
and  Thomas,  and  Nathanael,  and  James,  and 
John,  and  two  others  whose  names  we  know  not, 
partook  of  the  bounty  of  the  risen  Christ,  and 
heard  the  question  recorded  for  us  in  the  closing 
chapter  of  St  John,  —  **  Simon  Peter,  lovest  thou 
me  ?  "  The  answer  came,  "  Thou  knowest  that  I 
love  thee."  Then  the  answer,  which  shows  how 
all  thoughts  of  personal  honor  were  put  away 
even  from  the  triumphant  Son  of  God,  "  Feed  my 
sheep ! " 

The  Jewish  Rabbis  had  a  tradition  which  they 
expressed  thus :  "  Seven  lakes  have  I  created, 
saith  the  Lord ;  but  out  of  them  all  I  have  chosen 
none  but  the  lake  of  Gennesareth."  How  have 
these  words  been  fulfilled,  in  ways  of  which  the 
Rabbis  never  dreamed.  It  is  the  chosen  lake  of 
Providence.  Its  dimensions  are  not  large.  It 
measures  only  thirteen  miles  in  length  by  six  in 
breadth.  It  is  nothing  in  size,  and  hardly  in 
charm,  contrasted  with  Lucerne  or  Como,  Maggiore 
or  Lugano.  But  it  is  the  most  sacred  spot  of  the 
world.  It  does  not  lie  high  up  over  the  ordinary 
homes  of  men.  Nay,  it  is  in  a  strange  depression 
on  the  globe.  It  is  more  than  six  hundred  feet 
below  the  level  of  the  sea.  Yet  it  is  the  fountain- 
head  of  a  living  water  that  has  flowed  equally  to 
palaces  and  huts,  and  that  has  quenched  a  thirst 


Living  Water  from  Lake  Tahoe,      321 

in  souls  of  all  conditions  beyond  the  power  of  this 
world's  wine.  Gennesareth  has  been  at  once  the 
fountain-head  and  the  baptismal  font  of  the 
globe.  The  truth  that  first  fell  upon  its  shores 
has  cast  a  glory,  by  association,  upon  all  other 
inland  lakes,  and  indeed  has  illumined  all  nature. 
We  understand  and  appreciate  other  lakes,  only 
as  we  have  in  our  hearts  something  of  the  spirit 
that  was  taught  there. 

In  my  Sunday  musing  by  the  shore  of  our  lake, 
I  raised  the  question,  —  Who  were  looking  upon 
the  waters  of  Tahoe  when  Jesus  walked  by  the 
beach  of  Gennesareth  ?  Did  men  look  upon  it 
then  ?  and  if  so  were  they  above  the  savage  level, 
and  could  they  appreciate  its  beauty.'*  And 
before  the  time  of  Christ,  before  the  date  of 
Adam,  however  far  back  we  may  be  obliged  to 
place  our  ancestor,  for  what  purpose  was  this 
luxuriance  of  color,  this  pomp  of  garniture? 
How  few  human  eyes  have  yet  rested  upon  it  in 
calmness,  to  drink  in  its  loveliness !  There  are 
spots  near  the  point  of  the  shore  where  the  hotel 
stands,  to  which  not  more  than  a  few  score  intel- 
ligent visitors  have  yet  been  introduced.  Such  a 
nook  I  was  taken  to  by  a  cultivated  friend.  We 
sailed  ten  miles  on  the  water  to  the  mouth  of  a 
mountain  stream  that  pours  foaming  into  its  green 
expanse.  We  left  the  boat,  followed  this  stream 
by  its  downward  leaps  through  uninvaded  nature 
for  more  than  a  mile,  and  found  that  it  flows  from 
a  smaller  lake,  not  more  than  three  miles  in  cir- 
14*  u 


322      Living  Water fro7n  Lake  Takoe, 

cuit,  which  lies  directly  at  the  base  of  two 
tremendous  peaks  of  the  Sierra,  white  with  im- 
mense and  perpetual  snow-fields.  The  same  ring 
of  vivid  green,  the  same  centre  of  soft  deep  blue, 
was  visible  in  this  smaller  mountain  bowl,  and 
it  is  fed  by  a  glorious  cataract,  supported  by 
those  snow-fields,  which  pours  down  in  thundering 
foam,  at  one  point,  in  a  leap  of  a  hundred  feet  to 
die  in  that  brilliant  color,  guarded  by  those  cold, 
dumb  crags. 

Never  since  the  creation  has  a  particle  of  that 
water  turned  a  wheel,  or  fed  a  fountain  for  human 
thirst,  or  served  any  form  of  mortal  use.  Perhaps 
the  eyes  of  not  a  hundred  intelligent  spirits  on 
the  earth  have  yet  looked  upon  that  scene.  Has 
there  been  any  waste  of  its  wild  and  lonely 
beauty  ?  Has  Tahoe  been  wasted  because  so  few 
appreciative  souls  have  studied  and  enjoyed  it? 
If  not  a  human  glance  had  yet  fallen  upon  it,  would 
its  charms  of  color  and  surroundings  be  wasted 
charms  ? 

No,  brethren ;  w^e  must  test  uses  in  this  universe 
by  a  higher  thought.  Though  no  form  of  secular 
service  could  be  won  out  of  Lake  Tahoe,  it  would 
fulfil  a  noble  and  glorious  purpose  if  it  gave 
sacred  pleasure  to  human  visitors.  And  though 
no  human  eyes  should  ever  look  upon  it,  it  would 
serve  a  holy  purpose,  as  a  gem  of  the  Divine  art, 
by  giving  pleasure  to  the  Almighty.  "  Thou  art 
worthy,  O  Lord,  to  receive  glory,  and  honor,  and 
power :  for  thou  hast  created  all  things,  and  for 


Living  Water  from  Lake  Tahoe.      323 

thy  pleasure  they  are  and  were  created/'  The 
Infinite  mind  and  art  rejoices  in  the  glory  of 
his  creations.  Is  our  poor  appreciation  the 
measure  of  his  intention  or  success  in  the  won- 
drous order  of  the  heavens,  the  glory  of  the  sea, 
the  magnificence  of  mountain-peaks  by  sunset 
and  dawn  ?  No.  It  is  to  express  the  fulness  of 
his  thought,  the  overflow  of  his  art,  the  depth 
of  his  goodness,  and  to  enjoy  the  expression  of 
it,  that  God  compacts  the  globes  in  space,  and 
adorns  them  with  splendors  like  the  Himalaya 
and  Andes,  and  sprinkles  upon  them  the  brilliance 
of  lakes  and  seas,  and  binds  them  into  mighty 
harmonies,  and  beholds  them  obey  his  central 
will. 

Where  we  discern  beauty  and  yet  seclusion, 
loveliness  and  yet  no  human  use,  we  can  follow 
up  the  created  charm  to  the  mind  of  the  Creator, 
and  think  of  it  as  realizing  a  conception  or  a 
dream  by  him.  He  delights  in  his  works.  To 
the  bounds  of  space  their  glory  is  present  as  one 
vision  to  his  eye.  And  it  is  our  sovereign  priv- 
ilege that  we  are  called  to  the  possibility  of  sym- 
pathy with  his  joy.  The  universe  is  the  home  of 
God.  He  has  lined  its  walls  with  beauty.  He 
has  invited  us  into  his  palace.  He  offers  to  us 
the  glory  of  sympathy  with  his  mind.  By  love  of 
nature,  by  joy  in  the  communion  with  its  beauty, 
by  growing  insight  into  the  wonders  of  color, 
form,  and  purpose,  we  enter  into  fellowship  with 
the  Creative  art.     We  go  into  harmony  with  God. 


324      Living  Waterfront  Lake  Tahoe, 

By  dulness  of  eye  and  deadness  of  heart  to  natu- 
ral beauty,  we  keep  away  from  sympathy  with 
God,  who  is  the  fountain  of  loveliness  as  well  as 
the  fountain  of  love.  But  the  inmost  harmony 
with  the  Infinite  we  find  only  through  love,  and 
the  reception  of  his  love.  Then  we  are  prepared 
to  see  the  world  aright,  to  find  the  deepest  joy  in 
its  pure  beauty,  and  to  wait  for  the  hour  of  trans- 
lation to  the  glories  of  the  interior  and  deeper 
world. 

1863. 


XX. 

THE  COMET  OF  JULY,  1861. 

"  And  there  appeared  another  wonder  in  heaven  ; .  . . .  and  his 
tail  drew  the  third  part  of  the  stars  of  heaven."  —  Revelations  xii. 
3,4. 

I    AM  glad  at  every  new  temptation  to  consider 
in  the  pulpit  and  the  Church  the  wonders  and 
laws  of  modern  astronomy. 

Does  it  ever  occur  to  you,  brethren,  how  we 
waste  truth  ?  Have  you  ever  felt  what  a  sad  thing 
it  is  that  so  little  of  the  vast  accumulation  of  in- 
spiring knowledge  should  reach  our  deepest,  our 
religious  sentiments,  to  kindle  and  feed  them? 
The  most  certain  knowledge  which  men  now  hold 
is  that  which  is  gathered  from  the  sky.  Astron- 
omy, dealing  with  objects  thousands  of  millions 
of  miles  away,  and  with  forces  that  rule  through 
limitless  space,  is  the  most  symmetrical  and  firm 
of  all  the  structures  of  science  which  have  been 
reared  by  the  human  mind.  Immeasurably  more 
than  David  could  have  known,  the  heavens,  as 
Herschel  reads  them,  declare  the  glory  of  God. 
Yet  how  seldom  do  we  think  of  the  splendors  and 
harmonies  which  a  modern  book  of  astronomy 
unveils  as  part  of  God's  appeal  to  our  wonder ; 


326  The  Comet  of  Jidyy   1861. 

how  seldom  does  the  solemn  light  from  the  upper- 
most regions  of  immensity,  the  light  of  nebulae 
which  science  has  broken  up  into  heaps  of  suns, 
converge  upon  a  human  soul  with  power  enough 
to  stimulate  devout  awe  and  make  the  heart  bend 
before  the  Creator  of  the  universe ! 

When  a  new  wonder  breaks  from  the  depths  of 
the  sky  on  our  vision,  we  ought  to  turn  the  admi- 
ration or  joy  into  which  we  have  been  startled  to 
some  permanent  benefit,  by  seeking  through  its 
aid  a  clearer  comprehension  of  the  grandeurs  of 
the  heavens,  which  everybody  can  understand,  or 
by  a  deeper  response  of  the  devout  sensibilities 
to  the  glories  we  had  slighted. 

Let  the  strange  fire  which  burst  with  beauty 
upon  our  northern  heavens  last  week,  and  which 
is  now  fading  swiftly  from  sight,  be  the  means  of 
instructing  us  more  seriously  in  the  wisdom  of  His 
providence  who  "  telleth  the  number  of  the  stars 
and  calleth  them  all  by  their  names." 

This  last  passage  is  from  the  Bible.  It  is  sin- 
gular that  the  Bible  makes  no  allusion  to  comets. 
It  is  very  rich  in  astronomical  passages  and  im- 
agery. Ancient  literature  cannot  compare  for  a 
moment  with  the  prophets,  the  Psalms,  and  the 
Book  of  Job,  in  the  majesty  and  gorgeousness  of 
the  poetry  connected  with  the  vastness  of  the 
heavens  and  the  order  of  its  lights.  But  not  once 
is  any  of  the  wild  fires  that  rush  across  the  arch 
of  night  depicted  in  its  pages. 

There  must  have  been  many  splendid  and  as- 


The  Comet  of  Jtily,  1861,  327 

tonishing  comets  seen  in  the  Hebrew  sky  during 
the  period  in  which  the  richest  books  of  the  Old 
Testament  Hterature  were  written,  for  it  is  a  pe- 
riod including  several  centuries  ;  and  what  makes 
the  silence  more  striking  is,  that  in  ancient  times 
comets  excited  great  dread  and  superstitious  fears 
as  signs  of  disasters,  or  of  the  fierce  anger  of 
heavenly  powers.  But  the  Hebrew  imagination, 
which  loved  the  vast,  the  stormy,  the  vague  in  na- 
ture as  a  suggestion  of  the  Infinite,  never  touched 
the  mystery  of  these  corsair-lights  among  the  calm 
stars  ;  never  used  them  as  portents  of  evil  to  na- 
tions hostile  to  the  holy  laws ;  never  conceived 
them  as  swords  in  the  hand  of  Jehovah  to  punish 
a  guilty  heathen  kingdom  or  smite  a  rebel  He- 
brew state.  The  order  and  customs  of  the  heav- 
ens are  reflected  in  the  prophetic  literature,  like 
the  constellations  of  the  zenith,  in  a  waveless  sea. 
But  the  order  in  the  heavens  is  revealed  to  us 
through  comets  more  splendidly  than  in  any  other 
way.  When  I  first  looked  upon  the  brilliant  stran- 
ger in  our  heavens,  some  two  weeks  ago,  I  was 
troubled  that  I  could  not  know  its  history.  I 
wanted  the  answer  to  the  questions,  "  Have  you 
ever  visited  this  quarter  of  the  universe  before?" 
"  Is  our  sun  a  stranger  to  you,  or  have  you  felt  his 
rein  upon  you  in  former  circuits  around  him  ? " 
"  Are  you  the  long-expected  comet  which  terrified 
Europe  in  1556,  before  it  was  widely  believed  in 
civilization  that  our  earth  was  only  a  small  and 
moving  satellite  of  the  imperial  sun  ? " 


328  The  Comet  of  J^uly^   1861. 

It  has  been  supposed  by  prominent  astronomers 
that  the  comet  of  1556  was  a  member  of  our  solar 
system,  and  revolves  around  the  sun  in  about  three 
hundred  years.  Its  return  has  been  predicted  in 
1858  or  in  i860  or  186 1,  and  I*  could  not  but  re- 
gret that,  when  the  comet  burst  into  view,  it  w^as 
not  able  to  announce  to  the  beholders  its  identity 
and  its  place  in  the  order  of  the  firmament. 

But  then,  I  said  to  myself,  it  will  soon  be  known 
whence  and  who  this  new-comer  is.  Swift  as  he 
flies,  lawless  as  he  seems,  speedily  as  he  will  dis- 
appear on  his  retreat  from  the  sun,  it  will  soon  be 
known  and  published  what  his  history  is,  and 
whether  human  eyes  have  ever  looked  upon  him 
before.  After  three  or  four  patient  observations 
with  a  telescope,  the  skilled  astronomers  will  de- 
cipher in  what  curve  the  new  visitor  is  moving. 
They  will  tell  the  speed  of  its  flight.  They  will 
announce  from  what  depths  of  space  it  rushed, 
and  whether  or  not  it  has  crossed  the  track  of  the 
planets  that  swing  around  the  sun  ;  and  although 
no  accurate  observance  was  made  of  its  position 
in  the  heavens  before,  although  it  may  appear  in 
different  size  and  splendor  now,  although  no  hu- 
man eyes  even  with  a  powerful  telescope  have  ever 
been  or  will  ever  be  able  to  follow  a  thousandth 
part  of  its  immense  ellipse,  they  will  declare  with 
the  same  surety  as  if  they  had  then  been  hving 
and  had  seen  it,  if  it  be  the  same  flaming  meteor 
that  swept  over  Europe  three  hundred  years  ago, 
—  more  than  a  half-century  before  the  foundations 


The  Comet  of  Jidy,   1861.  329 

of  our  America  were  laid,  ten  generations  distant 
in  the  history  of  man ! 

A  modern  French  atheist  has  ridiculed  the  ex- 
clamation of  David,  "  The  heavens  declare  the 
glory  of  God  ! ''  He  says  that  the  heavens  de- 
clare the  glory  of  Kepler  and  Newton  and  La 
Place.  David  is  right,  and  so  is  the  Frenchman 
right  in  what  he  affirms,  though  he  is  insane  in 
what  he  denies.  The  magnificence  of  the  sky 
ought  not  to  abase  human  nature  with  a  feeling 
of  worthlessness.  The  greatness  of  man  is  writ- 
ten in  star-type  as  well  as  the  infinitude  of  God. 
Nothing  less  than  an  intellect  kindled  from  the 
Perfect  Reason  could  have  discerned  the  reach 
and  detected  the  laws,  and  foreannounced  the 
motions  of  the  heavens.  It  is  the  glory  of  New- 
ton and  Herschel  that  the  heavens  display,  —  the 
glory  of  intellect,  one  ray  of  which  is  in  the  gen- 
ius that  has  studied  the  heavens,  and  before  which 
the  mind  that  unrolled  and  spotted  and  sustains 
them  is  as  if  the  whole  sky  were  one  overpower- 
ing sunlike  flame,  David  himself  connects,  in 
the  sublime  Eighth  Psalm,  the  glory  of  the  heav- 
ens with  the  majesty  of  human  nature:  "When 
I  consider  thy  heavens,  the  work  of  thy  fingers, 
the  moon  and  the  stars  which  thou  hast  ordained, 
Lord,  what  is  man  that  thou  art  mindful  of  him, 
and  the  son  of  man  that  thou  visitest  him  ?  "  But 
he  instantly  exclaims,  "Thou  hast  made  him  a 
little  lower  than  the  angels,  and  hast  crowned  him 
with  glory  and  honor.     Thou  madest  him  to  have 


S30  The  Comet  of  yuly,  1861. 

dominion  over  the  works  of  thy  hands."  One 
cannot  say  before  the  heavens,  **  man  is  nothing 
in  presence  of  the  universe  ! ''  The  hfetime  of 
man  seems  nothing  in  presence  of  the  universe,  — 
its  vastness,  order,  and  persistence.  But  man 
seems  subhme  in  presence  of  the  universe,  for  its 
glory  is  the  glory  of  thought  and  wisdom,  and  his 
intellect  penetrates  to  these,  discloses  and  inter- 
prets them.  It  is  only  about  a  year  ago  that  a 
chart  was  prepared  for  an  American  scientific  as- 
sociation, showing  all  the  eccentricities  in  the  path 
of  one  of  the  planets  (Vesta)  in  the  last  five  hun- 
dred thousand  years.  The  Almighty  has  made 
the  human  intellect  for  partnership  in  the  deeps 
of  his  counsels  and  the  majesty  of  his  thoughts. 

In  the  year  1456,  before  the  true  theory  of  the 
heavens  was  known,  before  the  birth  of  Coperni- 
cus and  of  modern  science,  a  comet  appeared 
over  Europe  which  excited  very  wide  and  deep 
alarm.  Its  trail  was  of  surpassing  brilliancy,  and 
reached  two  thirds  of  the  distance  from  the  hori- 
zon to  the  zenith.  It  was  almost  universally  be- 
lieved to  be  connected  with  the  powers  of  evil  in 
nature,  and  the  Roman  pope,  Calixtus  Third,  is- 
sued a  bull  against  it,  putting  it  under  anathema, 
in  order  to  protect  the  Christian  world  from  its 
malign  influence.  I  do  not  know  how  soon  after 
this  papal  manifesto  the  monster  began  to  fade 
from  the  sky,  nor  do  I  know  whether  its  disap- 
pearance was  attributed  to  the  virtue  of  the  priestly 
edict.     We  know  only  that  the  people  were  greatly 


The  Comet  of  yiily,  1861.  331 

comforted  that  the  Holy  Father  attempted  to  whip 
back  the  intruder  from  the  peaceful  fold  of  the 
heavens,  and  that  the  superstitious  fear  and  the 
equally  superstitious  relief  are  adequate  represen- 
tations of  the  feeling  with  which  comets  were  re- 
garded before  the  birth  of  modern  science. 

Now  look  on  this  picture.  In  the  year  1682, 
about  the  time  that  the  law  of  universal  gravita- 
tion was  demonstrated,  a  remarkable  comet  was 
seen  on  the  sky  over  Europe.  Halley,  a  great 
English  mathematician  and  -friend  of  Newton^  at- 
tempted to  compute  its  orbit.  He  announced  that 
it  travelled  across  the  track  of  Jupiter  and  Saturn, 
and  that  it  would  recede  from  the  sun  to  a  dis- 
tance of  thirty-four  hundred  millions  of  miles  be- 
fore it  would  bend  around  for  its  returning  flight. 
He  declared  that  it  was  the  same  meteor  which 
had  frightened  the  civilized  world  so  intensely  in 
1456.  It  was  traced  back  to  the  year  1006,  when 
its  trail  presented  the  appearance  of  an  awful 
sickle  blazing  near  the  zenith.  Even  before  the 
birth  of  Christ  its  identity  was  detected  with  the 
comet  at  the  birth  of  King  Mithridates,  which  is 
said  to  have  equalled  the  sun  in  splendor. 

Halley  boldly  announced  these  results,  and  pre- 
dicted that  it  would  return  to  be  visible  in  Europe 
late  in  the  year  1758  or  early  in  1759.  This  was 
the  first  prophecy  ever  made  concerning  one  of 
these  lawless  and  baleful  fires. 

The  world  was  amazed  to  find  that  science,  then 
only  in  its  infancy,  dared  handle  these  prodigies 


332  The  Co7net  of  ytily,  1861. 

in  this  way,  and  dared  believe  that  they  were  har- 
nessed by  beneficent  and  unyielding  laws.  It  was 
almost  impossible  to  convince  men  that  it  was  not 
an  arrogant  delusion,  and  long  after  Halley  was 
in  his  grave,  as  the  year  1758  drew  near,  his  proph- 
ecy that  the  comet  would  return  excited  very  deep 
interest. 

Two  French  astronomers,  assisted  by  a  lady, 
undertook  to  determine  what  its  visible  path  would 
be  in  the  heavens,  and  at  what  precise  time  it 
would  approach  nearest  the  sun.  For  six  months 
the  three  devoted  themselves  to  calculations,  not 
stopping  even  at  meals,  and  one  of  them  con- 
tracted an  illness  which  shattered  his  constitution. 
As  the  result,  they  predicted  in  what  month  it 
would  pass  around  the  sun  unless  there  should  be 
an  unknown  planet  beyond  Saturn ;  in  that  case 
the  comet  might  be  hastened  nearly  thirty  days. 

Halley,  seventy-six  years  before,  when  it  faded 
away,  had  declared  that  it  would  reappear  late  in 
1758  or  early  in  1759.  It  was  first  detected- on 
Christmas  Day  of  1758.  The  French  mathema- 
ticians announced  that  it  would  approach  nearest 
to  the  sun  on  the  nth  of  April,  1759.  It  reached 
that  point  on  the  13th  of  March ;  and  there  was 
another  planet,  then  unknown,  revolving  beyond 
the  orbit  of  Saturn,  which  accounted  for  a  large 
part  of  this  slight  error  of  less  than  thirty  days. 
When  the  comet  receded  from  Europe  after  that 
visit,  it  bore  the  name  of  "  Halley,'*  and  wears  it 
now,  I  doubt  not,  wherever  it  wanders  in  the  cold 
and  distant  darkness,  in  the  sight  of  angels; 


The  Comet  of  yulyy  1861.  333 

It  was  expected  again  in  1835.  Computations 
were  made  once  more  with  the  most  rigid  care. 
Its  exact  path  and  point  of  reappearance  were 
announced.  The  test  was  anxiously  awaited,  and 
after  its  wild  journey  of  seventy-six  years,  it  burst 
into  our  sky  at  the  point  foretold,  and  reached  the 
goal  nearest  the  sun  within  nine  days  of  the  date 
which  had  been  pledged  by  mathematicians. 

The  astronomers  did  not  then  know  that  there 
was  still  another  planet  invisible  belonging  to  our 
system  in  the  immensity  of  space.  When  the 
comet  shall  reappear  in  191 1,  it  will  not  be  sur- 
prising if  the  time  of  its  curve  around  the  sun 
shall  be  predicted  to  a  day  by  the  astronomers 
then  alive.  In  1456  the  Pope  launched  against 
it  his  anathema  as  a  horror,  hostile  and  hateful  to 
God  and  the  Church.  Yet  how  little  they  knew 
then  of  the  size  of  the  monster !  How  little  they 
knew  that  its  diameter  at  the  head  was  forty  times 
that  of  the  earth !  In  1835  it  was  measured  as  it 
bent  around  the  sun.  It  was  found  to  be  three 
hundred  and  fifty-seven  thousand  miles  in  diam- 
eter, with  a  trail  a  hundred  millions  of  miles  in 
reach.  And  then  the  Churches  in  Christendom 
drew  lessons  from  it  of  confidence  in  the  vast  and 
beneficent  order  among  the  wild  forces  amid  which 
our  life  is  cast. 

But  since  Halley's  time,  in  1682,  an  immense 
deal  of  work  has  been  done  in  determining  the 
paths  and  periods  of  comets.  It  has  been  found 
that  there    are   thirteen  which  regularly  wheel 


334  '^^^^  Cornet  of  Julyy  1861. 

around  the  sun,  and  never  retreat  from  it  beyond 
the  orbit  of  the  planet  Saturn  ;  that  there  are  six 
which  cut  elHpses  about  Hke  Halley's,  receding  as 
far  as  the  planet  Uranus,  and  completing  their 
orbits  each  in  about  seventy  years,  and  that  there 
are  more  than  twenty  which  plunge  beyond  the 
farthest  known  planet  of  the  solar  system,  and  yet 
move  in  such  curves  that  they  must  return  to  the 
sun. 

The  comet  of  1858  was  one  of  the  last  class. 
When  it  first  appeared  in  that  year,  it  was  thought 
that  it  was  the  long-expected  stranger  of  1556, 
which  was  suspected  by  astronomers  to  move  in 
an  orbit  of  about  three  hundred  years.  But  it 
was  soon  found  that  its  range  in  the  universe  is 
far  wider.  It  requires  something  like  two  thou- 
sand years  for  its  revolution.  It  had  never  been 
seen  in  the  Christian  era.  Perhaps  it  is  the  same 
with  the  brilliant  one  seen  in  old  Rome  forty-three 
years  before  Christ,  and  which  was  then  believed 
to  be  the  soul  of  Julius  Caesar,  who  had  been 
recently  assassinated,  hovering  over  the  world. 

If  it  appeared  then  in  the  form  of  a  scimeter, 
which  it  first  assumed  when  we  were  permitted  to 
see  it  in  1858,  it  might  have  been  associated  with 
that  heroic,  all -conquering  soul,  excf^t  that  it 
seemed  too  sacred  to  be  connected  with  mortal 
strife  and  passions.  It  seemed  to  us  a  holy  fal- 
chion, a  flaming  brand  for  the  spirit  of  the  arch- 
angel Michael.  And  soon  it  changed  into  the 
curve  rather  of  an  immense  pen,  as  though  the 


The  Comet  of  July,  1861.  335 

Creator  were  moving  it  to  write  bis  name  on  the 
blank  darkness  of  space.  On  it  plunged  toward 
the  sun  till  it  approached  to  within  nearly  half  the 
distance  which  our  earth  keeps  from  him,  and 
wheeled  around  with  a  speed  of  one  hundred  and 
twenty-seven  thousand  miles  an  hour,  and  with 
a  trail  fifty-one  millions  of  miles  long  and  ten 
millions  broad  at  the  end,  commenced  its  rush 
outwards  into  the  darker  spaces.  It  will  move 
off,  the  astronomers  tell  us,  slackening  its  speed 
gradually,  crossing  the  earth's  track  and  that  of 
Mars  and  the  asteroids,  and  Jupiter  and  Saturn 
and  Uranus  and  Neptune,  still  out  and  out  for  a 
thousand  years,  beyond  where  the  most  powerful 
telescopes  could  discern  it  as  a  faint  stain  on  the 
cold  gloom,  its  rate  of  motion  reduce4  at  last  to 
four  hundred  and  eighty  miles  an  hour,  and  then, 
ten  centuries  hence,  it  will  wheel  again  and  begin 
a  leisurely  return  from  a  point  thirty-five  thousand 
millions  of  miles  away.  Hundreds  of  years  it  will 
travel  back  before  reaching  the  outermost  confines 
of  the  sun*s  planetary  fold.  Then  it  will  hurry  on 
its  journey,  and,  flying  faster  and  faster,  blaze  in 
its  wild  sword-shape  or  beautiful  pen-curve  for  the 
admiration  of  the  dwellers  on  this  globe  about  the 
year  4000,  when  the  astronomers  that  studied  it 
in  1858  shall  be  studying  it  in  heaven,  not  seeing 
"through  a  glass  darkly,"  but  understanding  its 
essence,  and  comprehending  its  mission  as  an  ex- 
pression of  the  thought  of  God. 

If  such  spaces  and  measures  of  distance  seem 


336  The  Comet  of  yidy,  1861. 

awful  and  make  the  brain  reel,  what  shall  we  say 
or  think  on  being  told  that  when  the  comet  shall 
reach  its  outpost,  thirty-five  thousand  millions  of 
miles  away,  it  would  have  to  keep  on  and  travel  a 
thousand  times  farther  in  order  to  reach  the  near- 
est fixed  star  ? 

But  there  are  comets  in  contrast  with  which  this 
last  one  is  quite  a  home  body  in  our  system,  too 
timid  to  wander  far  from  the  domestic  hearth  and 
fire.  The  curves  of  several  have  been  calculated, 
and  found  to  be  such  that  it  will  take  them  over 
eight  thousand  years  to  complete  their  sweep.  In- 
deed, astronomers  by  rigid  mathematics  have 
announced  that  the  period  of  a  comet  which  ap- 
peared in  1780  is  over  seventy-five  thousand 
years  ;  that  one  came  within  our  system  in  1830 
which  will  return  in  sixty  thousand  years  ;  and  that 
the  orbit  of  one  which  passed  its  perihelion  Oc- 
tober 17,  1844,  is  such,  reaching  one  hundred  and 
forty  times  as  distant  from  the  sun  as  the  dim  cold 
planet  Neptune,  so  far  out  that  the  sun  would  be 
lost  to  its  view,  its  orbit  so  immense  as  to  require 
the  constant  motion  of  one  hundred  thousand 
years  to  sweep  it.  Even  then  it  would  not  have 
begun  to  reach  the  most  neighborly  of  the  suns 
that  we  call  fixed  stars. 

Is  it  not  strange  beyond  all  explanation  that 
such  hazy  masses  can  preserve  their  identity  and 
their  form  in  the  wonderful  changes  of  tempera- 
ture and  condition  through  which  they  move! 
Think  of  the  fleecy  globe  held  by  the  gravitation 


The  Comet  of  yufyy   1861.  337 

of  the  sun  millions  of  miles  beyond  where  the  sun 
is  visible,  and  forced  by  it  to  bend  and  begin  to 
return  !  Think  of  the  cold,  as  well  as  darkness, 
of  that  depth  in  space,  —  nothing  but  starlight, 
bleak,  bitter,  perpetual  night !  And  when  it 
reaches  the  confines  of  our  system  on  its  return, 
think  of  the  increasing  velocity  of  its  plunge  tow- 
ards the  sun,  seeing  it  grow  from  a  small  to  a 
larger  star,  then  to  the  size  which  it  shows  to  us, 
then  swelling  and  swelling  as  it  flies  nearer,  till  at 
last,  as  in  the  case  of  the  comet  of  1680  and 
also  of  1843,  it  grazes  the  sun's  vesture  with  its 
atmosphere,  plunging  into  a  radiance  and  heat 
twenty-six  thousand  times  greater,  even,  than  that 
of  Marysville  and  Sacramento,  —  a  heat  which 
Newton  calculated  to  be  two  thousand  times 
greater  than  red-hot  iron,  —  and  still  not  lost  in 
it,  but  bending  around  it  and  escaping  from  it  as 
safe  as  the  loyal  Hebrews  from  the  fiery  furnace 
of  the  King  of  Babylon  ! 

The  great  Newton  imagined  that  comets  might 
be  feeders  of  the  sun,  destined  all  of  them,  at 
some  time,  to  plunge  into  and  renovate  its  globe 
of  flame.  He  confessed  his  belief  that  the  one 
which  appeared  in  1680  would  fall  into  the  sun 
after  five  or  six  revolutions.  And  whenever  that 
time  shall  come,  he  said,  "  The  heat  of  the  sun 
will  be  raised  by  it  to  such  a  point  that  our  globe 
will  be  burnt,  and  all  the  animals  upon  it  will 
perish." 

There  is  no  reason  for  our  being  frightened  at 
15  V 


338  The  Comet  of  Julyy  1861. 

any  peril  from  this  particular  cause,  for  the  comet 
of  1680  does  not  complete  its  orbit  in  much  less 
than  nine  thousand  years,  and  if  it  requires  five 
or  six  revolutions  to  be  sucked  into  the  solar 
jaws,  they  will  be  very  distant  descendants  of 
ours  that  will  suffer  from  the  raised  temperature 
of  our  planet.  And  although  the  great  name  of 
Newton  is  affixed  to  the  speculation,  there  is  no 
necessity  that  anybody  shall  be  disturbed  by  it. 
For  we  see  now  that  God  has  other  methods  of 
service  for  comets  than  to  see  them  shovelled  into 
the  sun's  hungry  heat  He  has  stored  the  sun 
himself  with  a  repellent  energy  that  saves  them, 
and  that  furnishes  to  them  their  brilliant  trail 
and  exquisite  grace  of  curve,  as  a  symbol  of  his 
mighty  charity.  The  sun  is  no  cannibal  father 
like  the  old  god  Saturn  of  mythology,  eating  his 
children.  And  the  solar  system,  the  more  mi- 
nutely it  is  studied,  becomes  the  more  vivid  and 
vast  an  expression  of  order  and  love ! 

The  danger  has  often  been  debated  of  a  col- 
lision between  our  globe  and  a  comet,  and  the 
probable  results  have  been  discussed.  Since  as- 
tronomy has  become  a  science,  the  fear  has  become 
frequent  and  sometimes  intense.  In  fact,  no  dread 
of  this  kind  was  experienced  in  former  times 
when  these  apparitions  excited  superstitious  ter- 
ror. In  1832  there  was  wide-spread  alarm  at  the 
possibility  of  a  catastrophe  from  such  a  cause, 
when  it  was  announced  that  Biela's  comet  would 
cross  the  earth's  track.    Had  the  comet  been  four 


The  Comet  of  July,  1861.  339 

days  later  the  earth  would  have  plunged  into  it  to 
a  depth  of  more  than  six  thousand  miles.  But  it 
is  doubtful  if  we  should  have  received  any  more 
damage  than  a  cannon-ball  from  a  Columbiad 
would  in  striking  a  floating  mass  of  thistle-down. 
Some  of  them  seem  to  have  in  the  very  thickest 
part  of  the  nucleus  nothing  more  solid  to  resist  a 
planet,  whirling,  like  ours,  more  than  a  thousand 
miles  a  minute,  than  the  fog  that  drifts  at  evening 
into  the  Golden  Gate,  would  offer  to  a  Pacific  mail- 
steamer  under  full  steam.  It  could  be  smitten 
with  as  little  damage  as  the  ghost  in  Hamlet  by 
the  truncheon  of  Horatio.  "  It  is  as  the  air,  in- 
vulnerable, and  our  weak  blows  malicious  mock- 
ery." If  there  are  no  deadly  gases  in  their  mists, 
it  is  certain  that  many  a  comet  which  has  visited 
our  system  might  have  been  struck  by  the  earth 
without  our  knowledge  that  we  were  experiencing 
anything  more  than  a  long  spell  of  Boston  east- 
wind. 

With  others,  however,  it  would  be  different. 
The  glorious  comet  of  1858  had  a  solid  nucleus 
denser  than  granite,  which  astronomers  were  able 
to  measure  and  weigh,  about  four  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  in  circumference.  This  was  a  very 
small  pit  for  the  vapory  pulp,  which  was  forty  thou- 
sand miles  in  diameter.  But  as  a  globe  of  granite 
only  thirty  miles  in  circumference  would  weigh  six 
millions  of  millions  of  tons,  neither  earth  nor  comet 
would  stand  such  gun-practice  as  their  meeting  in 
space  would  give,  —  each  flying  twenty  miles  a 


340  The  Comet  of  yuly,  1861. 

second.  The  comet  might  get  the  worst  of  it ;  but  it 
would  be  apt  to  make  the  country  where  it  struck 
acquainted  pretty  quickly  with  the  central  fire,  and 
open  a  good  piece  of  testimony  for  geologists. 
Let  us  be  thankful  that  we  may  rest  confident  — 
not  knowing  what  a  night  may  bring  forth  as  to 
the  return  or  irruption  of  these  hurrying  visitors  — 
that  the  switches  of  the  ecliptic,  where  these  trains 
may  cross,  are  never  out  of  order,  and  are  watched 
by  a  Will  that  seeks  not  chaos  and  destruction, 
but  order  and  safety ! 

And  now,  suppose  that  the  question  is  seriously 
asked  and  urged,  "What  are  the  uses  of  these 
flimsy  and  buoyant  splendors  that  stream  across 
the  night  ? ''  how  shall  we  answer  ? 

We  may  conjecture  that  they  are  related  to 
electric  forces  and  currents  in  the  solar  system, 
that  they  are  exchange  messengers  and  equalizers 
in  space.  The  comet  of  1858  was  studied  very 
closely  by  very  powerful  telescopes  as  it  came  near 
the  sun.  There  was  tremendous  turmoil  in  its 
globe  of  vapor.  The  envelope  seemed  to  rise 
from  the  nucleus  at  the  rate  of  thirty  miles  an 
hour.  It  seemed  as  though  nothing  could  prevent 
the  ghastly  mass  from  being  draw^n  by  the  sun's 
gravity  into  the  jaws  of  its  flame.  But  at  the 
nearest  point  of  approach  an  electric  repellent 
influence  went  forth  from  the  sun,  more  than 
twice  as  powerful  as  gravitation,  driving  off  the 
brilliant  trail  from  the  nucleus,  and  saving  the 
comet's  mass  from  swift  destruction.    From  depths 


The  Comet  of  July,  1861.  341 

of  space,  which  tire  our  calculation,  the  fleecy  orb 
felt  the  sun's  power  and  began  to  move  tov^ards 
it.  It  hastened  as  it  grew  nearer.  Its  speed 
grew  frightful.  It  plunged  like  the  dazzled  and 
light-winged  moth  towards  the  central  flame.  But 
the  sun,  that  had  drawn  it  so  far  by  its  mere  weight, 
now  put  forth  the  repellent  force  of  its  love  to 
save  it  from  dissipation,  to  store  it  with  electric 
energy,  perhaps  for  essential  services  and  dis- 
bursements of  mercy  on  its  new  career  across  the 
solar  system  into  immensity. 

If  such  be  not  the  material  uses  which  these 
bodies,  or  rather  spectres  in  space,  are  serving,  we 
know  not  what  to  answer  or  what  to  guess. 

But  suppose  that  we  can  find  or  imagine  no 
palpable  good  of  the  physical  order  which  they 
accomplish,  what  then  ?  Shall  we  account  them 
useless  ?  Shall  we  think  them  mere  blots  on  the 
creation  ?  One  of  our  friends,  during  the  meet- 
ing in  this  church  for  the  Protection  and  Relief 
Society  last  Monday  night,  in  the  course  of  an  ex- 
cellent and  efficient  speech,  said  that  the  present 
comet  looked  cold  and  selfish  in  its  splendor,  and 
that  he  longed  to  see  its  brilliance  made  produc- 
tive of  bread  on  the  solid  earth. 

Bread  is  good ;  yet  man  lives  "  not  by  bread 
alone,  but  by  every  word  that  proceedeth  from  the 
mouth  of  God."  Do  we  not  forget  one  of  the 
great  purposes  of  the  creation  when  we  relate  it 
to  physical  needs,  or  to  man  in  any  sense  exclu- 
sively ?    God  created  nature  for  himself  as  well 


342  The  Comet  of  July^  1861. 

as  for  us,  for  his  own  joy  as  well  as  for  our  exist- 
ence and  comfort  and  education.  What  a  sublime 
verse  is  that  in  the  Book  of  Revelation,  in  the 
worship  of  the  Elders :  "  Thou  art  worthy,  O 
Lord,  to  receive  glory,  and  honor,  and  power  ; 
for  thou  hast  created  all  things,  and  for  thy  pleas- 
ure they  are  and  were  created.'^ 

God  created  the  universe  to  express  his  thought, 
to  realize  what  we  may  reverently  call  conceptions 
of  genius,  to  reflect  the  deeps  of  his  imagination, 
and  so,  by  its  marvels  and  order,  to  fill  his  own 
spirit  with  joy.  It  is  not  necessary,  therefore, 
that  everything,  or  the  majority  of  things,  should 
serve  what  we  call  material  uses.  If  they  serve 
artistic  uses  to  the  Creator  of  nature,  they  are 
sacred,  —  we  should  bend  before  them.  Did 
Shakespeare  think  of  the  use  of  every  line  and 
phrase  when  he  flung  a  glowing  ornament  into 
the  stately  cadences  of  a  great  tragedy?  Did 
Raffaelle  think  of  the  cost  or  uses  of  the  pig- 
ments, when  he  poured  a  new  flush  of  color  upon 
a  group,  or  left  some  exquisite  line  or  tender 
witchery  of  expression,  in  the  very  excess  of  crea- 
tive opulence,  to  be  immortal  ?  Does  the  archi- 
tect demand  that  every  fragment  of  cornice  or 
thread  of  tracery  shall  be  of  use  in  the  statics 
of  the  building,  or  even  that  its  beauty  shall  be 
only  such  as  the  mass  of  observers  can  appre- 
ciate? No,  such  genius  pours  from  its  own 
treasury  to  embody  its  own  vision  and  satisfy  its 
own  heart. 


The  Comet  of  yuly,  1861.  343 

And  the  universe  is  God's  creation  for  his  con- 
tinual joy,  that  he  may  say  ever,  as  when  it  was 
first  completed,  that  "it  is  very  good." 

The  planets  move  with  glorious  order,  but  they 
swing  in  circles,  one  drawn  outside  of  the  other, 
circles  that  never  intersect  or  interfere  with  each 
other.  And  they  move  on  the  same  plane,  too. 
A  line  drawn  from  the  centre  of  the  sun  would 
cut  nearly  every  planet  out  as  far  as  Neptune. 
The  order  of  such  a  system  is  a  little  stiff  and 
tame.  What  if  the  comets  are  intended  to  vary 
it  by  the  strange  curves  they  carve  in  flame,  no 
two  alike,  —  by  their  wild  shooting  across  the 
paths  of  the  solid  globes,  and  by  their  unbridled 
liberty  of  approach  to  the  sun  ?  For  the  comets 
do  not  move  on  the  plane  of  the  ecliptic  as  planets 
do.  Some  of  them  play  in  it ;  some  cut  it  diag- 
onally from  above  ;  some  cut  it  in  the  same  way 
from  beneath ;  some  come  straight  up  from  below 
and  loop  the  sun  with  their  dishevelled  fire  and 
plunge  down  again ;  some  sweep  perpendicularly 
from  the  zenith  over  the  sun,  dive  under  and 
around  him,  and  mount  again  the  dizzy  heights  of 
the  abyss  \  and  some,  the  majority  of  those  thus 
far  seen,  wheel  about  him  and  fly  ofl*  in  such  a 
line  that  they  can  reappear  within  his  influence. 

What  a  wondrous  spectacle  does  this  make  the 
system !  There  are  immeasurably  more  comets 
than  planets.  Old  Kepler  said  of  them  that  they 
were  thick  as  fishes  in  the  sea.  If  it  be  true,  as 
an  old  philosopher  once  said,  that  "  God  geome- 


344  l^f^^  Comet  of  yiily,  1861. 

trizes/'  the  comets  are  the  chief  sources  of  his 
artistic  joy  in  space  :  they  show  the  intricacies  of 
the  order  to  which  his  thoughts  gave  being ;  they 
reveal  how  exact  and  beneficent  are  the  awful 
forces  in  the  system  which  suffer  no  interruption 
and  no  jar,  although  these  corsair-strangers  are 
running  perpetually  athwart  the  heavy-laden  lug- 
ger planets  in  the  ethereal  sea. 

And  think  of  the  wild  beauty  of  a  great  comet 
in  contrast  with  a  sober  orb  like  ours  !  Think  of 
one  like  the  monster  of  181 1,  its  head  more  than 
a  million  of  miles  in  diameter,  immensely  greater 
in  volume  than  the  sun,  brushing  the  solar  heat 
with  its  vapor,  and  then  swiftly,  as  from  a  bulbous 
root,  throwing  off  the  spray  of  its  blazing  electric 
vapor  a  hundred  millions  of  miles !  Such  are 
the  splendors  connected  with  one  solar  system, 
wrought  out  by  what  we  call  its  lawless  and  use- 
less elements.  Remember  that  each  fixed  star  is 
the  sun  of  such  a  system.  There  are  millions  of 
suns  around  which,  probably,  not  only  the  staid 
planets,  but  such  reckless  and  fantastic  shapes  are 
cutting  their  curves  and  shooting  their  thin  fires. 
And  then  try  to  think  what  a  spectacle  the  universe 
must  be  to  the  mind  that  holds  it  in  vision  from 
centre  to  outermost  fringes  of  light,  and  ask  if 
our  word  "  uses  "  is  the  true  one  to  measure  these 
comet  strangers  by,  or  say  if  the  song  of  the 
Elders  is  not  rather  the  worthier  philosophy. 

And  thus  we  are  led  to  see  that  one  of  the 
great  uses  of  comets,  for  the  human  race,  is  to 


The  Comet  of  yuly^  1861  345 

feed  the  sense  of  beauty,  stir  devout  emotions, 
interpret  the  abysses  of  space,  and  educate  the 
mind  and  soul  in  the  uttered  thoughts  of  God.  If 
they  make  us  wonder  more,  muse  more,  adore 
more,  think  more  solemnly  and  yet  with  solemn 
joy  of  the  play  of  God's  power  in  space,  and  the 
amplitude  and  punctuality  of  his  providence,  they 
make  life  nobler,  the  heart  more  tender,  the  soul 
wiser ;  they  do  us  more  good  than  if  they  simply 
dropped  corn  into  our  granary;  they  help  to  fit 
us  for  the  work  of  the  world  to  come. 

How  sad  it  appears  to  some  persons,  and  some- 
times perhaps  to  the  wisest,  that  human  life  seems 
so  short  in  contrast  with  some  fresh  measure  or 
index  of  what  the  scale  of  time  is  in  the  universe. 
Halley  and  Newton  studied  the  comet  of  1682 
and  prophesied  its  return  in  seventy-six  years,  — 
only  three  quarters  of  a  short  century.  And  yet 
such  a  mind  as  Newton's,  the  arch-intellect  of  cen- 
turies, the  most  august  force  on  the  planet,  could 
not  then  be  alive  on  the  earth.  The  great  comet 
of  1843  was  found  to  revolve  in  three  hundred 
and  seventy-six  years.  Ten  generations  of  star- 
students  will  be  in  their  graves  when  it  flings  its 
splendor  outward  over  space  on  its  next  visit. 
And  the  next  time  that  the  comet  of  1858  "  revis- 
its the  glimpses  of  the  moon,"  two  thousand  years 
of  human  science  and  story,  with  all  their  freight 
of  human  genius  and  human  hearts,  will  have 
floated  into  the  past. 

"  How  weak  and  frail  and  wretched  is  man  1 " 
15* 


346  The  Comet  of  yuly,  1861. 

Yes,  if  comets  blaze  over  his  tomb  !  But  what  if 
they  do  not?  What  if  Newton  mounts  to  be 
learner  and  teacher  of  a  higher  realm?  What  if 
Halley  is  professor  of  astronomy  in  a  more  favor- 
able academy  ?  What  if  Lalande  is  borne  where 
calculations  do  not  shake  the  constitution  !  What 
if  Laplace  is  wafted  where  he  cannot  doubt  of  God 
while  he  studies  his  geometry  in  wider  heavens  ? 
I  do  not  believe  that  God  accounts  the  student 
less  worthy  than  the  blackboard.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  he  made  his  pupils  to  die,  and  the  dia- 
grams he  has  drawn  for  them,  and  for  his  own 
delight,  though  they  be  in  star-fire,  to  be  imper- 
ishable. 

The  world  to  come  has  solemn  spiritual  condi- 
tions ;  but  we  must  not  fail,  either,  to  see  that  it 
is  glorious  as  a  sphere  of  mental  training  and  ad- 
vance and  intellectual  victory  and  joy.  One  of 
the  great  mathematicians  of  the  world  has  lately 
said  that  there  is  one  set  of  curves  connected  with 
the  solar  system  whose  mathematical  investigation 
would  furnish  abundant  occupation  for  the  most 
powerful  human  intellect  for  at  least  a  hundred 
millions  of  years.  He  said  this  soberly  in  a  care- 
fully written  paper.  It  is  for  such  purposes  that 
God  created  powerful  minds,  that  they  may  learn 
and  enjoy  and  grow,  and  become  teachers  of 
others,  and  lead  lesser  minds  into  the  paths  and 
deeps  of  his  own  thought  and  wisdom.  It  is  for 
such  purposes,  in  part,  that  the  heavens  are  bent 
over  the  habitation  of  spirits  on  this  earth.     It  is 


The  Comet  of  yuly,  1861.  347 

for  such  purposes  that  the  stranger-lights,  though 
they  bear  no  freight  of  minds  in  their  wild  track, 
move  in  their  fantastic  lines  over  space.  And 
when  the  body  breaks  on  this  solid  orb,  it  is  to  set 
the  spirit  free  for  the  clearer  and  devouter  study 
of  astronomy  on  a  higher  plane  of  being,  where 
the  true  souls  shine  themselves  as  stars  for  ever 
and  ever. 

1861 


XXI. 

EELIGIOTTS  LESSONS  FROM  METALLTJEGY. 

*'  The  fining-pot  is  for  silver,  and  the  furnace  for  gold :  but  the 
Lord  trieth  hearts."  —  Proverbs  xvii.  3. 

"  Jesus  said  unto  him,  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with 
all  thy  heart  and  with  all  thy  soul  and  with  all  thy  mind.  This  is 
the  first  and  great  commandment.  And  the  second  is  like  unto  it : 
Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself.  On  these  two  command- 
ments hang  all  the  law  and  the  prophets."  —  Matthew  xxii.  37-40. 

THE  Bible  has  a  great  deal  of  imagery  drawn 
from  the  ancient  processes  of  reducing  ores 
to  represent  the  moral  government  of  the  world. 
And  the  agents  of  his  providence  always  sit,  ac- 
cording to  the  figure  of  Malachi,  as  refiners  and 
purifiers  of  silver. 

To  get  the  dross  out  of  us,  —  this  is  the  sover- 
eign aim  of  our  training  in  this  world.  In  educa- 
tion the  main  purpose  is  to  free  the  mental  facul- 
ties of  the  dross  of  sloth  and  prejudice.  In  active 
life  the  great  success  is  in  confirming  the  fibre 
of  energy  and  character.  In  higher  relations  the 
object  of  the  Almighty  is  to  burn  out  the  dross 
of  the  spirit,  and  make  us  noble  and  pure.  The 
truth  and  influence  of  the  Bible,  the  laws  of  retri- 
bution in  society,  the  revelations  in  experience 


Religious  Lessons  from  Metallurgy,    349 

of  the  effects  of  moral  disobedience,  are  furnace- 
heats  to  separate  the  good  elements  from  the  bad 
in  character,  and  where  this  is  impossible,  to  sep- 
arate the  good  characters  from  the  bad. 

And  now  ask  yourself,  What  is  dross  in  human 
character?  What  do  you  represent  by  it  when 
you  use  that  word  in  your  own  thought  and  im- 
agery? Suppose  you  are  inclined  to  avarice, 
the  excessive  love  of  money.  If  you  think  of 
your  own  character  as  lifted,  strengthened,  made 
better,  do  you  think  of  that  quality  of  avarice  as 
untouched  ?  Do  you  think  of  it  as  stronger  than 
it  is  now  ?  Or  do  you  think  of  it  as  weaker,  as 
melted  down  in  part,  and  poured  off  from  your 
soul  like  scum  ?  Now  consider  profanity,  levity, 
intemperance,  lust,  moral  sluggishness,  vanity, 
haughtiness,  insolence  of  words  or  manners,  ir- 
reverence, rebellion  in  feeling  against  Providence, 
—  translate  these  into  natural  language,  into  the 
language  of  metals  and  the  crucible,  what  are 
they?  —  valuable  elements  or  foul  ones,  dross  or 
gold  ? 

But  take  the  converse  qualities,  —  reverence, 
purity,  zeal  for  good,  aspiration,  generous  use  of 
money,  the  spirit  of  sacrifice,  charity,  devotion  to 
the  will  of  God,  —  how  do  you  represent  these  in 
your  imagination  ?  I  do  not  ask  how  the  Bible 
represents  them  ;  in  what  thrilling  or  fiery  imagery 
prophets  and  apostles  speak  of  them.  But  I  ask. 
How  do  you  think  of  them?  When  you  see  a 
character  that  represents  these,  do  you  sponta- 


350    Religious  Lessons  from  Metallurgy, 

neously  say,  or  think,  that  he  is  a  noble  or  an  un- 
wise man  ?  Do  you  imagine  that  if  he  could  be 
made  still  better  he  would  lose  any  of  these  qual- 
ities, or  would  lose  rather  the  qualities  still  at- 
tached to  them  that  impede  their  exhibition  a 
little  and  debase  them  ?  You  say  at  once  these 
are  the  noble,  these  are  the  precious,  elements  of 
human  nature  and  human  life.  These  are  the  pure 
silver  and  gold  of  the  moral  w^orld. 

Now,  brethren,  God  is  seeking  to  bring  out 
these  qualities  into  greater  concentration  and 
prominence  by  his  moral  government.  Left  to 
ourselves,  to  the  wandering,  undirected  impulses 
of  our  constitution,  mentally  and  morally,  we 
should  always  be  in  the  ore  state.  The  hardships 
of  life,  the  tough  conditions  that  surround  the 
attainment  of  truth  and  the  training  of  character, 
are  God's  reducing  and  refining  processes.  The 
world  is  constructed  on  the  principle  of  corre- 
spondences. The  law  for  metallic  ores  is  the  law 
for  character.  By  hammers  and  stamps  and  mills 
and  furnaces  and  acids,  He  is  at  work  upon  us  to 
beat  out  and  expurgate  the  dross,  and  develop  the 
latent  good  which  the  soul  may  show. 

I  do  not  mean  to  maintain  here  that  all  the  hard 
conditions  of  life  can  be  explained  by  this  figure, 
or  by  any  figure  or  theory  of  man's  device.  A 
great  deal  in  the  ordering  and  permissions  of  Prov- 
idence can  never  be  understood  probably  in  this 
world.  But  a  world  without  hardships,  to  such 
beings  as  we  are,  would  be  a  far  worse,  a  far 


Religious  Lessons  from  Metallurgy,    351 

more  disastrous,  world  than  the  present.  Adam, 
if  he  had  stayed  in  Paradise,  as  the  book  of  Gen- 
esis describes  it,  would  have  been  a  poorer  crea- 
ture than  his  "fall"  enabled  him  to  be.  What 
would  a  ton  of  ore,  taken  out  in  one  slab,  be 
likely  to  say,  if  it  could  be  conscious,  when  car- 
ried to  the  batteries  of  the  mill,  and  then  washed 
for  gold,  and  roasted  to  drive  off  sulphur,  and 
pounded  again,  and  mixed  with  quicksilver,  and 
heated  once  more  to  drive  off  the  mercury, 
and  melted  again  into  a  mixed  bar,  and  assayed, 
and  still  once  more  melted  and  granulated  into 
cold  water,  and  then  gnawed  by  nitric  acid,  to  take 
up  the  silver  and  leave  the  gold  as  sediment,  and 
then  precipitated  from  the  acid  as  pure  silver 
powder,  and  washed,  and  packed  into  cakes  by 
hydraulic  presses  to  squeeze  the  water  out  of  it, 
and  melted  again  in  bars,  and  run  through  rollers, 
and  punched,  and  milled,  and  stamped,  —  thus 
becoming  fit  to  serve  the  daily  necessities  of  civil- 
ization ?  Suppose  it  should  be  told,  half-way  in 
the  process,  that  all  this  was  good  for  it,  was  part 
of  a  great  plan,  supremely  wise,  for  its  permanent 
benefit!  Would  it  not  be  likely  to  say,  *'Why 
did  you  not  leave  me  in  my  sluggish  content  in 
the  darkness  of  the  mine?  I  was  happy  there. 
I  had  no  dream  there  of  a  higher  and  better  lot. 
I  should  have  never  known  these  terrible  buffets 
and  scourgings  and  bitings  and  pressures  if  I 
had  been  left  there.  O  for  that  gloom  and  calm 
again  I  '* 


352    Religious  Lessons  from  Metallurgy, 

In  its  silver-bar  state,  afterwards,  in  its  coin- 
state,  will  it  say  so  ?  It  can  look  back,  then,  on 
the  trials  and  pains,  and  see  their  meaning,  and 
read  their  bitter  but  splendid  benevolence.  One 
of  these  days,  when  we  get  out  of  the  crucible 
and  beyond  the  laboratory,  —  out  perhaps  of  the 
globe  and  the  body,  both  of  which  to  many  of 
us  are  only  one  long  crucible,  or  a  swift  series 
of  transitions  from  the  pestle  to  the  flame,  — 
we  shall  be  able  to  comprehend  the  purposes  of 
Providence ;  we  shall  be  able  to  see  the  whole 
truth  underlying  the  wonderful  exclamation  of  the 
Apostle,  whose  Hebrew  dross  was  smitten  off  by 
one  lightning  stroke,  leaving  the  Christian  silver : 
"I  reckon  that  the  sufferings  of  this  present 
time  are  not  worthy  to  be  compared  with  the 
glory  which  shall  be  revealed  in  us !  "  We  see 
enough  now  to  show  that  the  best  qualities  of 
human  nature  are  brought  out  and  tested  by  diffi- 
culty and  suffering.  To  the  choice  characters  of 
the  world  God  can  say  now,  as  the  Spirit  said 
through  Isaiah,  "  I  have  refined  thee,  but  not  with 
silver :  I  have  chosen  thee  in  the  furnace  of  afflic- 
tion." And  if  this  world  is  designed  not  as  the 
final  state  for  the  enjoyment  of  God,  but  as  the 
state  in  which  we  get  the  preparation  of  quality 
within  for  the  true  knowledge  and  enjoyment  of 
him,  we  find  the  whole  secret  of  life,  —  of  its  ter, 
rors  and  its  hidden  mercy,  —  when  we  follow  the 
ore  from  its  cave  to  its  appearance  as  the  clean 
silver  and  the  flaming  gold. 


Religions  Lessons  from  Metallurgy,    353 

Do  not  fail,  either,  to  receive  the  searching 
lesson  as  to  judgment  hidden  in  this  analogy. 
The  ore  is  tested  thoroughly  as  the  final  process  of 
its  history.  The  assayer,  by  balance  and  fire,  de- 
termines exactly  what  its  quality  is  and  its  worth. 
And  the  processes  of  God's  government  are 
taking  us  to  judgment.  It  is  to  be  known  and 
seen  one  day  just  what  we  are.  This  is  to  be  our 
judgment.  It  will  not  be,  as  unripe  theologies 
foolishly  maintain,  an  arbitrary  opinion  and  decree 
of  God.  Nor  can  we  escape  it  by  shielding  our- 
selves under  the  righteousness  of  the  holy  Christ. 
What  we  are  is  to  be  shown  yet  in  the  moral 
world.  The  day  is  coming  when,  by  the  opera- 
tions of  spiritual  law,  every  soul  will  be  assayed 
and  stamped,  and  pass  for  what  it  is  —  no  more, 
no  less  —  in  the  realm  of  souls.  To  the  great 
judgment  of  truth  you  and  I,  and  all  the  millions 
living,  are  moving  with  every  heart-beat,  and 
nothing  can  save  us  from  its  severity  and  its  re- 
wards. **  The  fining-pot  is  for  silver,  and  the  fur- 
nace for  gold  ;  but  the  Lord  trieth  the  hearts." 

But  I  ought  not  to  pass  from  the  general  topic 
of  the  refinement  of  dross  from  men,  as  part  of 
the  intention  of  hardship  in  the  moral  govern- 
ment of  the  world,  without  alluding  to  the  expe- 
rience of  our  nation  in  its  present  struggle. 

What  should  this  war,  with  its  terrible  flames 
and  hissings  and  thunder-hammers  be,  but  a 
process  of  purification  for  the  imperial  republic  ? 
What  does  God  intend  for  us   less  than  that? 


354    Religious  Lessons  from  Metallurgy. 

The  only  payment  for  the  awful  expenditure >of 
blood  and  hopes  is  that  the  nation  shall  come 
out,  not  only  whole,  but  homogeneous,  —  sounder 
in  its  system  of  labor,  nobler  and  more  symmetri- 
cal in  its  civilization,  the  cinders  and  clinker, 
the  slag  and  scum,  left  by  years  of  guilt  and  folly, 
ought  to  be  driven  off  by  the  frightful  heats  and 
fury  of  the  war.  Then  our  children  will  bless 
these  battle-years,  the  debt  we  leave  will  look 
cheap  to  them ;  and  men  who  study  our  strife 
from  the  distance  of  a  century  will  say,  "Then 
God  sat  by  the  furnace,  and  smelted  America 
till  her  crime  was  purged,  and  she  became  pure 
gold." 

If  we  pass  now  to  consider  sectarian  divisions 
and  strifes  in  the  Christian  Church,  we  can  gain 
some  help  in  a  right  estimate  of  them,  and  for  a 
wise  charity,  from  analogies  in  the  science  of 
metallurgy.  The  great  object  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment and  of  Christianity  is  to  increase  religious 
qualities  practically  in  the  world,  to  add  pure 
working  forces  to  life,  so  that  men  will  be  nobler 
and  happier  in  themselves  and  in  their  relations 
to  each  other.  No  church  is  the  New  Testa- 
ment. No  •  church  is  Christianity.  You  might 
as  well  say  that  a  mill  is  a  mine,  or  that  one  set 
of  mills  is  all  the  mineral  wealth  of  the  world. 
Different  churches  apply  Christianity,  or  pure 
religion,  to  human  nature,  according  to  some 
peculiar  method,  custom,  or  theory,  in  order  to 
refine  and  ennoble  the  characters  of  men,  just  as 


Religions  Lessons  from  Metallurgy,    355 

different  mills  apply  different  methods  of  reduc- 
tion and  different  mineral  theories  to  ores. 

There  is  a  great  deal  to  be  said,  in  the  contro- 
versy between  different  methods  of  reduction,  in 
favor  of  some  processes  as  being  very  much  wiser 
than  others.  And  what  has  been  the  result? 
Partisanship  has  not  triumphed.  Broad  views 
have  been  victorious.  God  has  made  different 
kinds  of  ores,  and  equally  rich  in  different  kinds. 
For  some  kinds  of  mineral  one  process  is  admi- 
rable ;  for  other  kinds  a  very  different  treatment  is 
essential.  And  human  nature  is  analogous.  Evils 
are  thrown  off  from  men,  and  good  is  practically 
brought  out,  by  a  variety  of  spiritual  methods  ;  and 
that  church  or  system  of  training  is  the  best  for  a 
soul  which  fits  its  temperament  and  quickens  its 
will.  In  some  men  the  good  is  quickly  and  easily 
appealed  to  and  developed.  A  simple  faith  and 
administration  will  reach  and  awaken  it.  Others 
have  the  sulphurets  in  the  soul.  They  are  obsti- 
nate. Common  batteries  and  cool  washings  do 
not  do  the  work.  They  need  heat,  fire,  the  treat- 
ment of  the  element  of  fear ;  that  takes  hold  of 
them.  Calvinism  is  the  process  that  reduces  their 
stubborn  self-will,  and  makes  them  agents  of  good. 
Give  the  proper  temperaments  to  each  church,  — 
let  the  Episcopalians  take  those  that  can  be  best 
reached  by  their  methods,  and  the  Methodists 
take  their  natural  material,  and  the  Swedenbor- 
gians  and  the  Quakers  and  the  Calvinists  theirs, 
and  the  Unitarians  theirs,  and  great  good  will  be 


3S6    Religious  Lessons  from  Metallurgy, 

done.  The  world  of  character  will  be  richer. 
The  work  of  the  Spirit  will  be  variously  and  prop- 
erly performed.  "  There  are  differences  of  admin- 
istrations, but  the  same  Lord."  Trouble  often 
comes  from  misarrangement  of  characters  under 
methods.  Some  people  are  ill  at  ease  under  Cal- 
vinistic  ideas  and  treatment  who  would  be  hap- 
pier and  stronger  under  Unitarian  training.  Some 
are  brought  up  Episcopalians  who  are  natural 
Quakers ;  some  are  Baptists  who  were  born  for 
Swedenborg's  philosophy  and  culture.  Apportion 
souls  right,  and  the  Church  would  be  stronger  for 
its  varieties  of  method  and  theology,  —  as  this 
coast  is  richer  by  the  rival  processes  in  treating 
ores. 

But  did  )^ou  ever  hear  of  a  metallurgist  denying 
that  gold  is  gold,  because  it  was  obtained  by  an- 
other process  than  that  which  he  uses  and  favors  ? 
The  contests  of  rival  melters  and  assayers  are 
over  the  question,  Which  is  the  wisest  and  cheap- 
est method  for  bringing  out  the  precious  metal  for 
use  in  the  w^orld  ?  They  do  not  presume  to  say 
that  no  metal  is  good  but  that  which  their  fur- 
naces have  yielded.  Theologians  in  their  sphere 
have  essentially  done  that.  No  practical  Chris- 
tianity, they  sometimes  presume  to  say,  nothing 
that  God  will  accept  and  bless,  will  issue,  or  can 
issue,  from  your  processes  of  administering  truth, 
because  you  ignore  the  only  means  by  which  good 
is  developed  in  men. 

In  science  men  appeal  to  the  facts.     If  you  put 


Religious  Lessons  from  Metallurgy,    357 

in  a  ton  of  ore  and  take  out  a  pound  of  gold, 
you  may  say  that  there  ought  to  be  two  pounds, 
but  you  can't  say  that  the  process  does  n't  pro- 
duce any  gold.  And  if  a  system  of  Christian 
administration  produces  honesty,  integrity,  prin- 
ciple, charity,  interest  in  worship,  interest  in  good 
ideas  and  good  government  and  liberty  and  order, 
quiet  and  elevated  homes,  readiness  to  serve 
others  and  to  hold  gifts  and  treasures  partly  in 
trust  for  others,  —  are  these  qualities  to  be  denied 
to  be  good  because  the  process  which  produces 
them  is  different  from  the  ordinary  customs  ?  The 
melter  and  assayer  does  not  make  coin ;  society 
does  not  allow  him  to  put  his  stamp  on  money 
and  say  all  gold  is  spurious  which  is  not  poured 
from  my  crucibles.  It  is  his  office  to  produce 
gold.  The  government  coins  and  issues  it,  and 
allows  that  great  office  to  no  private  hands.  So 
the  business  of  churches  is  to  produce  purity, 
reverence,  integrity,  charity,  readiness  to  do  good 
in  all  forms.  God  rates  and  stamps  the  products, 
and  his  judgment  is  the  final  and  the  only  one 
as  to  the  honesty  or  spuriousness  of  the  products 
of  the  sanctuaries.  There  is  a  Baptist  culture 
and  thought  and  theology ;  there  is  a  Methodist 
one,  and  an  Episcopalian  one,  and  a  Catholic  one, 
and  a  Presbyterian  one.  But  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  a  Presbyterian  truthfulness,  a  Baptist 
charity,  an  Episcopalian  benevolence,  a  Unitarian 
integrity.  These  qualities  are  absolute.  They 
have  no  sectarian  stamp.     They  are  the  precious 


3S3    Religious  Lessons  from  Metallurgy, 

gold  and  silver  of  life  wherever  they  appear  ;  and 
the  attempt  to  localize  or  sectarianize  them  would 
be  as  futile  as  the  attempt  to  refer  each  eagle  or 
half-dollar  of  our  daily  currency  to  the  lode  whence 
it  issued,  or  the  laboratory  where  it  was  reduced. 

It  is  perfectly  proper  for  a  man  to  say,  *I  believe 
that  my  church,  with  its  theology  and  adminis- 
tration, is  far  better  than  any  other  to  meet  the 
needs  of  a  large  class  of  souls,  and  I  love  it  and 
will  cling  to  it,  and  strengthen  it  with  all  my  power 
while  I  live."  This  is  noble.  But  when  he  says, 
"  No  other  administration  or  form  of  creed  than 
mine  entitles  a  church  to  the  name  ^  Christian,' " 
he  is  a  bigot.  And  when  he  goes  so  far  as  to 
deny  that  the  great  qualities  of  integrit}^,  honor, 
beneficence,  and  self-sacrifice  are  substantial  and 
acceptable  to  God  if  they  have  been  associated 
with  a  theology  and  form  of  worship  different  from 
his  own,  he  is  not  far,  alas  !  from  being  a  blas- 
phemer of  the  Holy  Ghost 

There  is  one  other  point  upon  which  I  w^ish  to 
make  our  subject  bear  in  illustration.  I  mean  the 
objects  and  the  concentrated  value  of  the  Old 
Testament  history  and  literature.  Jesus  said  that 
the  first  great  commandment  was  love  of  God ; 
the  second  was  love  of  man  ;  and  "  on  these  two 
commandments  hang  all  the  law  and  the  prophets." 
When  one  seizes  these  principles  clearly  in  his 
thought,  he  holds  mentally,  then,  the  practical 
worth  of  the  marvellous  volume  that  begins  with 
Genesis  and  closes  with  Malachi.    When  he  strives 


Religious  Lessons  from  Metallurgy,    359 

to  express  these  principles  in  his  action,  he  is  en- 
deavoring to  live  out  all  that  the  inspiration  of  the 
Old  Testament,  whatever  be  its  extent  or  grade, 
has  to  offer  as  truth  for  the  will  of  man. 

The  tunnels,  shafts,  and  galleries  of  the  mine, 
the  picks  and  shovellings  and  blastings,  the  ropes 
and  pulleys  and  engines,  the  pumping  and  drain- 
ing, the  hoisting  and  assorting,  the  labor  and  cost 
of  transportation  to  the  mill,  the  strength  and  ex- 
pense, and  all  the  appurtenances  of  the  mill  itself, 
—  the  water  or  steam  power,  the  wheels  and  belts 
and  drums,  the  heavy  stampers  and  batteries,  the 
screens  and  sieves,  the  vats  and  mercury  and 
chemicals,  the  washing  and  drying,  the  roasting  and 
sweating,  the  melting  and  moulding  into  bars,  — 
all  are  for  the  sake  of  the  little  shining  bricks 
that  are  delivered  from  the  reducing  furnace  at 
last.  On  those  small  squares  of  blended  silver 
and  gold  hang  all  the  worth  and  purpose  of  the 
mineral  vein,  and  the  toil  and  science  and  treasure 
expended  on  its  development. 

There  is  a  great  discussion  now  about  the  Bible, 
especially  the  Old  Testament,  and  its  religious 
value.  Is  it  a  verbally  inspired,  completely  accu- 
rate, and  authoritative  revelation  ?  The  Old  Tes- 
tament is  a  very  wonderful  book,  and  its  value  in 
the  religious  and  providential  training  of  the  world 
cannot  readily  be  stated.  But  it  is  not  a  con- 
tinuous revelation.  It  does  not  offer  you  concen- 
trated spiritual  truth  in  all  its  pages,  the  pure 
silver  and  gold  of  the  Spirit.    The  Old  Testament 


360    Religions  Lessons  from  Metallurgy, 

is  a  great  lode,  or  precious  mineral  vein,  upheaved 
and  winding  through  the  strata  of  a  national  his- 
tory. There  are  different  kinds  and  qualities  of 
ore  in  it, — some  easy,  some  difficult  of  reduction  to 
the  pure  standard  of  moral  truth.  What  splendid 
"  pay  streaks  "  there  are  in  it,  like  Isaiah  and  por- 
tions of  the  Psalms,  in  which  you  can  see  the 
sparkle  of  the  native  silver  and  the  free  gold ! 
Follow  Joshua  and  the  Judges,  and  the  average 
rock  is  not  so  rich.  Some  insist  that  it  does  not 
pay  for  working.  There  are,  also,  what  miners 
call  "  horses  "  in  it,  —  documents  like  Esther  and 
Ecclesiastes  and  chapters  of  the  Chronicles,  —  in 
which  there  is  none  of  the  precious  metal  of  in- 
spiration. Streaks  of  trap-rock,  too,  like  the  book 
of  Daniel,  cross  it,  injected  from  a  later  age. 
And  there  are  pages  in  it  like  Solomon's  Song, 
showing  the  sparkle  of  iron  pyrites  wliich  so  many 
have  mistaken  for  the  glitter  of  genuine  gold. 

The  Old  Testament,  compared  with  all  other 
ancient  national  literatures,  is  a  religious  gold  and 
silver  vein  immensely,  incalculably,  divinely  rich. 
That  is  its  distinction  in  the  world,  and  will  be  its 
distinction  forever.  And,  by  the  statement  and 
authority  of  Jesus  himself,  we  get  its  concentrated 
value  in  the  laws  of  love  to  God  and  our  neighbor. 
It  exists  to  educate  the  world  to  those  principles 
and  to  supply  means  for  extending  those  qualities. 
Theologies,  councils,  commentaries,  churches,  are 
finally  valuable  to  the  soul,  not  as  they  bind  you 
and  enslave  you  intellectually  to  the  Old  Testa- 


Religious  Lessons  from  Metallurgy,    361 

ment,  but  as  they  help  you  to  grasp  and  retain 
those  two  religious  statutes  on  which  hang  all  the 
Law  and  the  Prophets,  and  in  which  they  are  all 
summed  up.  Rightly  studied,  the  Old  Testament 
is,  I  believe,  yet  an  immense  help  to  the  religious 
nature  of  man.  But  if  any  portions  of  its  pages 
do  not  help  and  feed  you,  do  not  yield  to  you  the 
precious  gold  of  practical  religious  truth,  you 
are  at  liberty  to  drop  them.  They  are  not  your 
master ;  they  are  offered  only  as  your  help. 

If  you  revere  and  love  God,  or  try  to,  as  the 
Infinite  and  Gracious  Providence,  if  you  love  man 
and  show  it  by  service  oifered  to  human  need,  you 
carry  in  your  heart  what  the  Old  Testament  was 
organized  to  teach  you.  Inspiration,  portable 
and  practical,  is  found  in  the  twin  laws  of  religious 
and  social  love.  If  you  understand  little  of  com- 
mentaries and  theological  discussion  and  council 
lore,  and  have  these,  you  have  what  Jesus  Christ 
called  the  essentials.  Knowledge  of  mining  is 
good,  but  its  practical  value  is  in  furnishing  the 
silver  for  human  use.  This  spirit  of  love  is  the 
silver  into  which  the  inspiration  collected  from  the 
ore  of  the  Bible  is  finally  reduced.  If  you  do 
not  possess  this  spirit,  your  Biblical  learning  is 
only  intellectual  wisdom,  your  soundness  of  faith 
is  only  correct  thinking ;  and  though  you  be  bap- 
tized every  day  in  the  name  and  forms  of  the  most 
orthodox  creed,  you  advance  not  by  a  step  towards 
the  kingdom  of  heaven.  It  is  not  I  that  say  this. 
It  is  the  Apostle  Paul.    For  he  said  :   "  Though  I 


362    Religious  Lessons  from  Metallurgy, 

have  the  gift  of  prophecy,  and  understand  all 
mysteries  and  all  knowledge ;  and  though  I  have 
all  faith,  so  that  I  could  remove  mountains,  and 
have  not  charity,  I  am  nothing."  And  again  he 
said,  "  Love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law." 

1863. 


XXII. 

CHRISTIAN  WORSHIP  * 

THIS  is  the  first  formal  discourse  that  is  to 
be  uttered  in  our  new  house  of  praise.  The 
occasion  itself  seems  to  ask  us  to  consider  the 
broad  subject  of  worship.  And  no  passage  within 
the  compass  of  the  Bible  opens  that  subject  with 
words  of  such  liberality  and  power  as  those  which 
were  spoken  by  Jesus  of  Nazareth  to  the  woman 
of  Samaria  near  Jacob's  well.  They  are  written 
in  the  twenty-third  verse  of  the  fourth  chapter  of 
St.  John's  Gospel :  "  The  hour  cometh  and  now 
is,  when  the  true  worshippers  shall  worship  the 
Father  in  spirit  and  in  truth.'' 

Of  the  breadth  and  inclusiveness  of  this  pas- 
sage and  its  relation  to  theological  controversies 
and  Christian  forms  of  devotion,  we  may  be  called 
to  speak  further  on,  but  it  is  of  worship  itself 
as  a  natural,  noble,  and  precious  expression  of 
human  feeling  that  I  wish  first  to  treat. 

This  church  is  erected  to  train  and  feed  the 
spirit  of  worship.    Not  only  by  hymns  and  prayers, 

*  Preached  at  the  opening  of  the  new  church  in  San  Francisco, 
January  lo,  1864. 


364  Christian    Worship. 

but  by  the  influence  of  instruction  and  appeal  as 
well,  one  of  its  main  purposes  —  we  may  say,  in- 
deed, decisively  the  main  purpose  of  the  services 
to  be  held  in  it  on  Sundays,  year  in  and  year 
out,  till  its  material  decays,  is  to  stimulate  and 
refresh  the  feelings  of  wonder  and  awe,  of  obliga- 
tion, gratitude,  and  trust  before  the  Infinite. 

The  spirit  of  adoration  is  as  old  as  the  records 
of  humanity.  Adam  heard  thefvoice  of  God  in 
the  garden.  Abel  offered  sacrifice  to  an  unseen 
power ;  and  the  guilty  Cain  bowed  with  his  gift, 
though  it  was  not  accepted.  From  the  border 
line  of  light,  where  authentic  history  fails  us,  we 
feel  our  way  back  towards  the  birth  of  man  by 
the  ruins  of  temples  and  the  fragments  of  solemn 
tradition.  Of  early  races  and  nations  that  have 
perished,  we  know,  in  many  instances,  nothing 
more  than  this,  —  they  worshipped. 

The  disposition  to  worship  belongs  to  the  struc- 
ture of  the  human  soul.  Religious  ideas  are 
changed  by  the  progress  and  diffusion  of  knowl- 
edge. Forms  and  theories  of  worship  are  shat- 
tered and  left  behind  by  the  enlargement  and  the 
march  of  the  intellect.  Is  it  probable  that  wor- 
ship itself  will  be  outgrown  ?  Sometimes  we  hear 
of  fears  that  it  may  be  so.  Now  and  then  a  boast 
is  made  by  an  enemy  of  superstition  that  the  ad- 
vance of  science  will  yet  eradicate  the  tendency 
to  prayer  and  homage.  The  answer  to  the  fear 
and  the  boast  is  this  :  "  Is  it  likely  that  the 
progress  of  science  will  degrade  human  nature 


Christian    Worship,  365 

and  extinguish  one  of  the  deepest  elements  of 
human  nobleness  ?  "  With  the  gain  of  knowledge 
we  instinctively  associate  the  advance  of  our  race. 
Think,  for  a  moment,  of  this  globe  filled  with  in- 
habitants, and  no  spire  or  dome  of  praise  on  it, 
no  pulse  or  throb  of  adoration  in  all  its  millions  ! 
Think  of  this  globe  simply  in  its  physical  aspect, 
*'  a  crust  of  fossils  and  a  core  of  fire,"  spinning 
in  the  bleak  immensity,  and  bearing  myriads  on 
myriads  of  intelligent  creatures  yearly  around  the 
sun,  without  wonder,  without  awe,  without  any 
cry  from  brain  or  heart  into  the  surrounding  mys- 
tery !  Suppose  that  the  minds  of  these  multi- 
tudes shall  be  cultured  far  beyond  the  average  of 
even  the  most  favored  classes  now,  would  you 
account  it  an  advance  of  human  nature,  if  all  this 
knowledge  was  gained  at  the  cost  of  the  sense  of 
a  vast,  incomprehensible  power,  within  whose 
sweep  the  world  and  all  its  interests  is  bound  ? 
Would  you  count  it  an  advance,  if  it  was  pur- 
chased at  such  a  price  that  there  should  never  be 
again  on  the  earth  any  tower  to  represent  a  place 
of  adoration,  any  organ-music  to  bear  up  a  chant 
or  anthem,  any  hymn  of  pleading  or  penitence, 
any  public  or  secret  supplication  for  spiritual  pro- 
tection and  strength,  any  prayer  of  agony  or  affec- 
tion at  the  burial  of  the  dead  ?  This  is  what  it 
means,  when  the  statement  is  made  that  science 
is  to  banish  worship.  Would  it  be  a  rise  or  a  fall 
of  humanity,  —  such  progress  ?  and  do  you  believe 
that  the  race  is  on  the  way,  through  knowledge, 
to  such  a  destiny  ? 


366  Christian    Worship, 

Worship  will  cease  when  wonder  dies  in  the 
heart  of  man,  and  when  the  sense  of  the  infinite 
is  expunged  from  his  soul.  Is  the  progress  of 
knowledge  likely  to  produce  either  of  these  re- 
sults ?  How  can  all  the  light  we  can  collect  and 
concentrate  from  finite  facts  release  us  from  the 
conception  of  the  infinite,  or  help  us  to  enclose 
it  within  the  tiny  measure  of  our  thought  ?  And 
when  has  science  so  explained  anything  as  to 
banish  wonder  from  the  mind  that  appreciates  the 
explanation  ?  When  the  old  belief  that  the  earth 
was  flat  and  still  yielded  to  the  proof  that  it  is 
round  and  restless,  was  there  anything  in  the 
change  of  conceptions  to  paralyze  wonder  or  re- 
lease the  mind  from  awe  ?  When  the  speed  of 
light  was  measured,  did  religion  suffer  any  shock 
through  the  sealing  up  of  mystery?  When  the 
structure  of  the  beam  of  light  was  unfolded  by 
analysis,  and  the  hues  of  the  colorless  braid 
dishevelled,  were  the  minds  that  gained  the  new 
knowledge  injured  in  their  religious  instincts  by 
the  banishment  of  their  ignorance  ?  And  when 
human  thought  tries  to  measure  and  appreciate 
the  distance  of  the  nearest  fixed  star  which  as- 
tronomers have  calculated,  after  patient  and  deli- 
cate experiments  of  years,  is  there  anything  in 
the  process  by  which  the  blank  evenness  of  space 
is  thus  broken,  and  a  diamond-point  moved  back 
so  far  that  the  nimblest  imagination  is  appalled 
in  the  attempt  to  realize  it ;  anything  to  embarrass 
the  intellect  in  taking  the  attitude  of  worship ; 


Christian    Worship.  367 

anything  to  stifle  the  cry  of  adoration  from  the 
soul  to  whom  that  knowledge  comes  ? 

Ah  !  against  what  folly  are  we  arguing  thus  ? 
Our  knowledge  in  this  universe  to  dry  up  the 
springs  of  awe,  and  deliver  us  from  the  weakness 
of  adoration  !  Let  the  man  come  forward  who  is 
ready  to  say,  under  the  starry  arch  of  night,  "  I 
know  so  much  of  nature  that  I  blow  as  a  bubble 
from  me  the  thought  of  God,  and  count  it  childish 
to  entertain  the  thought  of  a  Sovereign  Mind  !  " 
Did  Newton  feel  like  saying  that  ?  Would  Her- 
schel  say  that  in  his  observatory  ?  If  they  had 
said  it,  should  we  think  of  them  as  greater  men 
than  now  ?  If  David  could  have  known  the  skies 
as  we  know  them,  would  he  have  had  less  reason 
to  say,  would  he  have  been  less  moved  to  exclaim, 
**When  I  survey  thy  heavens,  the  work  of  thy 
fingers,  the  moon  and  the  stars  which  thou  hast 
ordained,  Lord,  what  is  man  that  thou  art  mindful 
of  him,  and  the  son  of  man  that  thou  visitest  him"? 

It  will  not  be  the  progress  of  knowledge,  but 
the  decay  of  the  noble  elements  in  human  nature, 
that  will  ever  banish  worship  from  the  world. 

Indeed,  the  glory  of  knowledge  is  in  fellowship 
with  the  devout  sentiment.  There  are  three  pur- 
poses for  which  we  may  study  truth,  —  to  obtain 
power  over  nature,  to  cultivate  and  enlarge  our 
minds,  and  to  discern  and  acknowledge  a  revela- 
tion from  a  boundless  and  invisible  thought.  A 
man  may  study  the  law  of  gravitation  in  all  its 
proofs  and  applications  in  order  to  widen  his  con- 


368  Christian    Worship, 

trol  over  matter  through  accurate  comprehension 
of  the  conditions  of  mechanical  force.  He  may- 
study  it  with  equal  ardor,  without  any  reference  to 
practical  uses,  but  for  the  sake  of  enlarging  the 
domain  of  truth  over  which  his  intellect  can 
sweep,  for  the  mere  thirst  after  the  light  and 
joy  of  knowledge.  And  he  may  also  study  it,  in 
its  relation  to  this  globe  and  all  worlds,  as  a  dis- 
closure of  the  thought  of  an  unfathomable  Intel- 
lect that  unfolds  itself  in  the  order  of  the  universe. 
In  which  of  these  ways  is  the  glory  of  knowledge 
attained  ?  I  say  nothing  in  disparagement  of  the 
first  two,  of  course.  They  are  essential  to  civili- 
zation. The  last  is  not  inconsistent  with  devotion 
to  the  others.  But  if  men  stop  with  the  first  two, 
do  they  not  miss  the  highest  relations  of  truth  ? 
They  study  facts  without  their  fountain.  They 
read  words  with  no  reference  to  the  genius  that 
published  them.  They  live  in  a  world  of  cold 
effects  that  never  hint  the  majesty  of  their  cause. 
It  is  to  refresh  men  with  this  noblest  relation 
of  truth  and  knowledge  that  churches  are  built. 
With  the  unfolding  of  truth  as  universities  teach 
it,  and  for  such  purposes,  a  church  has  little  to  do. 
But  it  has  a  right  to  use  all  the  truth  that  science 
gathers  and  establishes  in  illustration  of  the  mind 
and  providence  of  God.  Worship  is  the  exercise 
which  the  Church  is  to  sustain.  And  all  the  as- 
pects of  truth  which  will  bend  the  mind  of  man 
in  humility  and  exalt  it  in  adoration  are  legiti- 
mately within  the  range  of  the  pulpit,  and  are, 
indeed,  a  portion  of  its  trust. 


Christian    Wo7'ship.  369 

We  dedicate  this  house  to  the  worship  of  God 
"  in  truth."  We  have  no  fear  of  desecrating  the 
sacred  hours  if  we  listen  here  to  interpretations 
of  the  majesty  and  providence  of  the  Almighty 
through  lessons  from  nature.  Sometimes  we  hear 
criticisms  of  the  Unitarian  pulpit,  and  even  sneers 
at  it,  because  it  often  introduces  topics  from  na- 
ture that  seem,  it  is  said,  more  suitable  for  lectures 
than  for  sermons.  Oar  answer  is  that  we  find 
God  in  nature,  and  we  build  our  pulpits  to  inter- 
pret God.  We  find  God  in  Mount  Shasta  as  in 
Hermon,  and  do  not  fear  to  say  so  on  Sunday. 
We  see  the  majesty  of  God  in  the  Sierra  as  in  the 
range  of  Lebanon,  and  are  not  restrained  now 
and  then  from  the  confession.  We  find  the  eter- 
nal goodness  and  beauty  mirrored  in  Lake  Tahoe 
as  Christ  found  them  in  the  colors  of  Gennesa- 
reth,  and  we  have  not  learned  from  him  to  be 
timid  in  our  acknowledgment  of  what  God  unfolds. 
And  so  long  as  the  book  of  Job  remains  in  the 
Bible  with  its  appeal  for  faith,  in  the  most  eloquent 
chapters  of  the  world's  literature,  drawn  from  the 
aspects  of  creation;  and  so  long  as  the  One-hun- 
dred-and-fourth  Psalm  pours  its  praise  through 
verses  that  mark  the  outline  of  human  knowledge 
twenty-five  centuries  ago  ;  and  so  long  as  the  sub- 
limest  passages  of  prophets  are  those  which  use 
the  mountains,  stars,  and  sea  as  the  conductors 
of  the  glory  of  the  Omnipotent ;  and  so  long  as 
Paul  invites  us  to  understand  how  the  invisible 
things  of  God  are  made  known  by  the  things  that 
16* 


370  Christian    Worship. 

are  made ;  and  so  long  as  Jesus  Christ  publishes 
his  insight  through  parables,  and  calls  us,  that  we 
may  know  the  constancy  and  tenderness  of  Provi- 
dence, to  "  consider  the  lilies  of  the  field  how  they 
grow,"  —  we  have  no  hesitation,  on  grounds  of 
reverence  for  Scripture,  in  making  appeal  within 
the  Church  for  adoration  of  the  Infinite,  to  the 
wonders  of  his  thought  and  power  that  are  open- 
ing to  men  from  the  depths  of  the  earth,  from  the 
study  of  the  hills,  from  the  structure  of  the  ani- 
mate creation,  from  the  splendors  and  marvels  of 
light,  from  the  liberality  of  sea  and  air,  from  the 
subtile  surprises  of  the  microscope,  and  from  the 
tremendous  spectacle  and  forces  which  the  tele- 
scope has  unveiled. 

We  believe  that  the  misuse  of  the  Church  is  not 
that  such  themes  are  occasionally  brought  into  it, 
but  rather  when  they  are  steadily  kept  out.  Truth 
is  wasted  when  it  is  not  turned  to  account  to 
make  men  more  reverent  before  the  Infinite.  And 
scepticism,  or  indifference  to  sacred  truth,  is  now 
increasing  in  Christendom,  for  one  prominent  rea- 
son, because  pulpits  are  not  more  faithful  in  inter- 
preting the  new  aspects  and  disclosures  of  science 
as  part  of  the  unveiling  of  the  Almighty  to  man. 

We  dedicate  this  house  to  the  worship  of  one 
God,  the  source  and  support  of  all  life  and  the 
ruler  of  all  souls.  We  build  it  not  only  to  adore 
him  in  the  wonder  with  which  his  works  are  con- 
templated, but  also  in  the  homage  we  pay  to  his 
sovereign  righteousness.     In  this  line  of  worship 


Christian    Worship,  371 

we  come  into  deeper  fellowship  with  the  spirit 
that  breathes  from  the  chief  pages  of  the  Bible. 

1  have  said  that  the  glory  of  knowledge  lies  in 
the  acceptance  of  truth  as  a  manifestation  of  an 
Inhnite  mind.  It  is,  however,  a  profounder  and 
more  thrilHng  statement  that  is  made,  when  we 
are  told  that  all  truth  and  beauty  issue  from  a 
holy  and  sovereign  Will.  This  is  the  foundation 
for  a  more  vital  worship  from  man,  —  the  pour- 
ing of  incense  upward  from  our  conscience  and 
our  moral  powers.  Show  me  two  men,  one  of 
whom  has  enriched  his  mind  with  all  the  laws  of 
every  modern  science,  but  who  does  not  vitally 
beUeve  in  the  sacred  personality  of  God  as  the 
patron  of  all  goodness,  and  the  other  of  whom, 
with  but  slight  acquisition  of  secular  knowledge, 
is  penetrated  with  a  conviction  that  the  world  is 
ruled  by  a  righteous  and  all-potent  Will,  and  I 
will  show  you  in  the  second  man  a  nobler  man, 
and  a  man  who  has  attained  deeper  truth  than 
the  first. 

The  world  was  startled  not  many  years  ago  by 
the  announcement  that  a  European  astronomer 
suspected  that  he  had  discovered  a  central  sun. 
Around  one  of  the  Pleiades  he  believed  that  there 
was  evidence  for  thinking  the  whole  mass  of  stars 
sprinkled  upon  our  night  was  slowly  revolving. 
What  a  conception  that  one  of  those  little  points 
of  Hght  is  the  axis  of  such  a  stellar  whole  !  The 
doctrine  of  one  God  is  a  mightier  thought  than 
that.     The  doctrine  that  his  will  is  opposed  to 


372  Christian    Worship. 

evil,  that  his  eyes  are  too  pure  to  behold  ipiquity, 
that  his  worship,  to  be  accessible,  must  be  offered 
in  simplicity  of  heart,  and  with  a  desire  to  be  re- 
deemed from  evil  and  to  aid  the  cause  of  good, 
and  that  thus  all  spirits  of  all  worlds,  the  spirits  of 
the  just  made  perfect,  and  the  emotions  of  angels 
are  honoring  Him,  is  a  conception  that  dims  the 
physical  magnificence  of  the  outward  heavens. 

Every  church  is  reared  to  represent  this 
thought.  The  Bible  has  inwrought  this  doctrine 
with  the  mind  of  the  race.  This  was  the  deepest 
inspiration  of  David,  of  Isaiah,  of  Jeremiah,  of 
Habakkuk.  This  is  the  substructure  of  the  edi- 
fice of  religious  truth  in  the  New  Testament. 
And  this  is  a  conception  that  cannot  be  out- 
grown. It  is  ultimate.  We  can  grow  in  the 
acknowledgment  of  it,  in  the  power  and  blessed- 
ness which  acquaintance  with  it  brings ;  but  the 
wisest  man  that  will  ever  live  can  never  go  be- 
yond it.  In  harmony  w^ith  all  Christians  we  are  to 
worship  here  the  immaculate  righteousness  of  the 
Creator.  We  shall  bring  our  sinfulness  here,  not 
to  hide  it,  but  to  pray  that  it  may  be  forgiven  and 
cleansed.  We  shall  bring  here  the  record  of  our 
sluggishness  in  service,  that  in  his  light  we  may 
be  affected  with  shame  and  spurred  to  nobler 
endeavor.  We  shall  bring  here  the  cause  of  the 
poor  and  the  oppressed,  every  interest  of  needy 
humanity  and  struggling  truth,  assured  that  his 
ear  is  ready  for  every  petition  that  commends  to 
him  the  hope  and  suffering  of  his  children.     We 


Christian    Worship,  373 

shall  bring  here  the  record  of  our  victories  over 
evil  —  few  as  they  will  be  —  with  the  confidence 
that  they  will  be  accepted  as  the  most  sincere 
homage  of  his  equity  and  truth.  Civilization 
depends  on  the  continuance  of  faith  in  the  per- 
sonality and  holiness  of  God.  It  is  only  through 
that  faith  that,  the  consciences  of  men  will  be 
illumined,  that  the  will  of  man  will  be  curbed, 
that  the  devotion  and  sacrifice  of  heroes  in  the 
cause  of  truth  will  be  inspired  and  confirmed. 
To  all  the  wholesome  awe  which  that  faith  sheds, 
to  its  menace  of  guilt,  and  its  welcome  of  all 
goodness  as  divine,  we  devote  our  church. 

But  there  is  still  a  higher  conception  connected 
with  the  personality  and  purity  of  God,  —  the 
word  "  Father."  The  Bible  in  all  its  prophetic 
chapters  glows  with  the  solemn  light  of  the  divine 
holiness.  But  Jesus  first  uttered  with  confidence 
and  tenderness,  as  the  bond  of  union  for  the 
whole  race  in  worship,  the  word  "  Father."  In  a 
very  few  passages  of  the  Old  Testament  that  word 
is  associated  with  the  Infinite.  But  Jesus  never 
used  any  word  suggesting  power  chiefl}^  or  holi- 
ness exclusively,  in  relation  to  the  Creator.  He 
never  speaks  of  God  as  the  Creator,  or  the  Al- 
mighty, or  the  Sovereign,  or  the  Infinite,  or  the 
Eternal.  Neither  of  those  w^ords  was  ever  used 
by  Jesus,  so  far  as  the  records  tell  us  of  his 
thought.  Whenever  he  described  God,  it  was  the 
word  '*  Father,"  and  only  that,  which  he  used. 
And  when  this  word  —  the  fountain  of  love — was 


374  Christian    Worship, 

added  to  the  conception  which  the  Old  Testa- 
ment had  traced  in  fire  of  the  personality  and 
Righteousness  of  the  Infinite,  the  structure  of  the 
Bible  as  the  educator  of  the  world's  religious  sen- 
timent was  complete.  God  is  one,  God  is  holy, 
God  is  the  Father,  —  the  Infinite  is  love;  then 
the  attraction  is  complete  in  the*  heavens  for  all 
the  faculties  of  man,  and  for  all  human  faculties 
in  every  race,  in  every  age,  and  in  all  stages  of 
progress  and  attainment. 

We  owe  this  final  revelation  to  Jesus  Christ. 
The  sense  of  mystery,  the  sense  of  beauty,  the 
will,  the  conscience,  the  affections,  —  all  are  drawn 
upward  to  that  name  with  which,  through  him,  the 
Infinite  has  clothed  himself.  We  build  our  house 
in  honor  of  this  supreme  thought  of  the  supreme 
soul  of  all  centuries.  To  the  worship  of  God  the 
Father  we  rear  and  devote  it. 

It  is  not  every  heart  that  reaches  that  faith? 
even  among  sincere  Christians.  It  is  not  on  every 
day,  or  every  Sunday,  that  those  to  whom  it  does 
come  are  able  to  hold  and  enjoy  it.  But  when 
we  do  gain  the  vision  of  it,  we  reach  a  conception 
vaster  and  more  precious  than  all  the  books  of 
science  can  unveil ;  and  when  we  do  for  a  season 
feel  the  joy  and  experience  the  peace  of  it,  it  is  a 
joy  which  the  world  cannot  give  or  take  away,  it 
is  a  "peace  that  passeth  understanding."  The 
soul  in  which  faith  in  the  paternity  of  the  Infinite 
has  its  home,  and  which  relies  on  it  in  all  the 
shocks    and    surprises    of   experience,    the   soul 


Christian   Worship,  375 

which  interprets  this  world  by  its  light,  and  colors 
the  next  with  its  hope,  however  slight  may  be 
its  attainment  in  knowledge,  has  reached  the 
height  of  inward  power  and  rest. 

Adoration  of  the  Father  is  the  distinctively 
Christian  worship.  "  The  true  worshippers  shall 
worship  the  Father  in  spirit  and  in  truth."  How 
broad  this  sentence  is  intellectually,  as  well  as 
how  deep  spiritually!  How  it  interprets  the 
comprehensiveness  as  well  as  tenderness  of  the 
Christian  faith!  How  it  swells  as  the  fitting 
dome  over  the  foundations  and  walls  of  the  Old 
Testament !  How  it  sweeps  high  over  the  pride 
of  races,  the  antagonisms  of  Christian  theology, 
the  bitterness  of  sectarian  passion,  the  chronic 
antipathies  of  differing  forms  !  Eighteen  hundred 
years  ago  these  words  were  spoken  in  Syrian  air 
by  the  founder  of  Christianity.  For  nearly  eigh- 
teen hundred  years  they  have  been  read,  in 
various  tongues,  in  the  written  or  printed  records 
of  the  New  Testament.  Yet  in  their  elevation 
and  their  inclusiveness  they  sound  fresh  and 
strange  to-day. 

If  the  question  were  put  to  the  representative 
theologians  of  the  great  churches  which  seek  to 
honor  Christ,  "  What  is  the  distinction  of  accept- 
able Christian  worship  ? "  how  many  prominent 
Catholics  would  dare  to  say,  in  reply,  that  tem- 
ples and  priestly  ministrations  are  not  essen- 
tial to  it  ?  how  many  leading  Trinitarians  would 
promptly  answer  that  the  conception  of  the  Trinity 


376  Christian    Worship, 

is  not  vital  ?  how  many  thoughtful  Episcopalians, 
of  ail  branches  in  that  communion,  would  spon- 
taneously acknowledge  that  the  order  and  sacra- 
ments of  the  church  cannot  be  intruded  into  it  ? 
how  many  Evangelical  scholars  would  cordially 
confess  that  mental  conceptions  of  depravity  and 
atonement  are  subordinate,  and  must  not  be  min- 
gled with  it  ?  Yet  Jesus  does  put  all  these  out  of 
sight.  He  does  not  say  the  true  worshippers 
shall  offer  adoration  to  the  Trinity,  nor  through 
the  forms  of  the  mass  or  any  liturgy,  nor  with 
this  or  that  conception  of  human  sinfulness,  nor 
in  connection  with  any  metaphysical  theory  of 
the  cross ;  but  "  the  true  worshippers  shall  wor- 
ship the  Father  in  spirit  and  in  truth.*' 

"  The  day,"  says  Ernest  Renan,  "  when  Jesus 
pronounced  this  word  he  was  truly  Son  of  God. 
He  spoke,  for  the  first  time,  the  sure  word  on 
which  the  edifice  of  eternal  religion  shall  rest. 
He  founded  the  pure  worship,  of  no  land,  of  no 
date,  which  all  lofty  souls  will  practise  to  the  end 
of  time.  His  religion  that  day  was  not  only  the 
religion  good  for  humanity,  it  was  absolute  re- 
ligion ;  and  if  other  planets  have  inhabitants  en- 
dowed with  reason  and  morality,  their  religion 
can  be  no  other  than  that  which  Jesus  proclaimed 
at  Jacob's  well.  The  word  of  Jesus  has  been  a 
gleam  in  a  dark  night.  But  the  gleam  will  be- 
come the  full  day  ;  and  after  having  run  through 
the  whole  circle  of  errors,  mankind  will  return  to 
that  word  as  the  imperishable  expression  of  its 
faith  and  its  hopes." 


Christian   Worship,  377 

Bow,  brethren,  before  the  breadth  and  insight 
of  these  words  of  the  Great  Teacher.  Bow  with 
your  inmost  spirit  that  you  have  reared  a  house 
in  his  name  and  to  the  praise  of  the  Eternal  Love 
to  which  he  offered  his  soul.  If  there  are  any 
who  deny  that  our  worship  is  Christian,  because 
our  creed  is  discordant  at  many  points  with  the 
popular  conceptions  of  theology,  rejoice  that  you 
can  take  shelter  under  the  declaration  of  the 
Founder  of  our  religion.  Rejoice  that  you  may 
know  that,  if  the  Father,  to  whom  we  rear  this 
church,  is  honored  here  by  love  and  trust,  the 
offerings  will  be  accepted  and  the  worship  will  be 
blest.  Rejoice  also,  and  more  deeply,  that  you 
are  delivered  from  narrowness  of  theory  in  the 
Master's  kingdom.  Rejoice  that  you  can  gladly 
afhrm  that,  in  all  churches,  whether  or  not  the 
doctrines  be  accurately  true,  and  the  ritual  the 
best  that  can  be  devised,  every  breathing  of  adora- 
tion towards  the  Infinite  Providence,  every  sincere 
prostration  of  the  will  before  the  Sovereign  Holi- 
ness, every  emotion  of  trust  in  the  gracious  care 
of  the  Eternal,  every  cry  for  help  under  the  hard- 
ships and  amid  the  pressures  of  life,  is  answered 
by  the  Spirit,  who  visits  the  heart  and  seeketh 
such  as  "  worship  in  spirit  and  in  truth." 

Is  it  not  cause  for  devout  gladness.  Christian 
brethren,  that  such  an  edifice  is  reared  for  such 
ideas  in  this  youthful  and  thriving  city  ?  I  do 
not  say  that  we  have  built  it  for  God,  as  though 
he  requires  it  for  his  honor.     He  to  whom  the 


378  Christian    Worship, 

universe  belongs  looks  not  for  temples,  made 
with  hands,  as  themselves  needed  offerings  in  his 
praise.  He  wfio  sees  a  myriad  mornings  painting 
countless  worlds  every  instant,  and  the  splendor 
of  perpetual  sunsets  streaming  over  innumerable 
globes,  requires  not  the  structures  heaved  up  by 
our  puny  toil.  All  the  praise  that  God  the  Spirit 
asks  is  devout  emotion,  clean  affections,  trust  in 
his  love. 

But  that  we  may  nurture  devout  emotion,  that 
we  may  find  the  calm  in  which  to  seek  him,  and 
the  aids  for  upward-looking  thought,  we  need 
sacred  places,  rooms  that  are  shielded  from  the 
intrusion  of  worldly  suggestions,  an  air  that  is 
thrilled  with  devout  music  and  spiritual  appeal 
alone.  We  need  the  help  of  consecrated  seasons 
and  holy  spots  in  order  that  we  may  the  more 
readily  worship  the  Father  in  spirit  and  in  truth. 
If  you  cannot  so  easily  find  access  to  God  here 
as  elsewhere,  if  in  your  home  your  thoughts  take 
wing  to  the  Infinite  benignity  more  readily  than 
here,  if  in  the  presence  of  nature  or  under  the 
inspiration  of  a  wise  and  thrilling  book — some 
revelation  of  truth  by  science,  some  sermon  by  a 
soul  that  was  an  organ  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  some 
chapter  from  a  devout  man's  life  —  your  heart  is 
moved  into  communion  with  the  Infinite  as  it  can- 
not be  in  the  church,  then  this  building  and  its 
services  are  not  within  your  need.  But  if  it  is  not 
so,  —  as  with  most  of  us  I  am  sure  it  is  not,  —  if  in 
the  toils  and  whirl  of  these  busy  days  it  is  a  bless- 


Christian    Worship,  379 

ing  to  find  a  place  where  the  chants  of  prophets 
are  fitly  winged  with  music,  and  the  words  of 
Christ  are  uttered,  and  the  air  is  kept  free  for  the 
pleading  of  Christian  hymns  and  the  interpreta- 
tion of  Christian  sanctities,  —  and  if  that  place  has 
a  beauty  that  is  not  out  of  harmony  with  the  uses 
it  was  reared  to  serve,  —  will  you  not  rejoice  that 
such  an  aid  is  offered  to  you  to  prepare  your  feel- 
ing to  meet  and  receive  the  blessing  of  the  Spirit? 
There  are  no  sacred  places  until  souls  make  them 
so.  But  how  much  easier  can  souls  make  those 
places  sacred  that  are  not  invaded  by  the  rough 
conflicts  and  the  coarse  passions  of  the  world ! 
As  our  hymn  has  told  us, 

"  All  space  is  holy,  for  all  space 

Is  filled  by  thee  ;  but  human  thought 
Burns  clearer  in  some  chosen  place 
Where  thy  own  words  of  love  are  taught." 

Have  we  too  many  of  such  "  chosen  places  "  in 
our  modern  cities  ?  —  too  many  here,  where  not 
one  eighth  of  the  population  regularly  attend 
church  ?  Have  we  too  many  in  proportion  to  the 
interest  we  show  in  the  secular  development  of 
our  nature  and  our  civilization  ?  Above  all,  have 
we  too  many  that  are  erected  in  testimony  of  our 
faith  in  the  Infinite  Fatherhood?  No.  You  know 
how  emphatically  we  must  say  no  to  each  of  these 
questions.  I  call  on  you  to  rejoice  in  this  day's 
work  and  offering.  It  is  a  tribute  which  the 
noblest  faculties  of  our  nature  erect  to  the  ideas 
and  sanctities  with  which  they  are  lifted  into  sym- 
pathy.    It  is  a  tribute  of  devotion  to  a  form  of 


380  Christian    Worship. 

faith  which  we  hold  precious.  It  is  a  tribute  of 
allegiance  to  the  spirit  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 

Shall  w^e  make  our  offering  incomplete  by  leav- 
ing it  unpaid  for?  Shall  we  say  that  we  honor 
the  highest  powers  of  our  nature  so  slightly  that 
we  are  willing  the  very  reverence  we  pay  to  them 
shall  be  liable  to  earthly  mortgage?  I  trust  not. 
I  cannot  believe  that  we  are  ready  to  consent  that 
the  shadow  of  debt  shall  be  cast  upon  the  beauty 
of  our  sanctuary,  and  dim  the  integrity  of  our  con- 
secration of  it.  Until  a  church  is  paid  for  —  if 
the  worshippers  in  it  are  able  to  pay  for  it  —  the 
building  is  nobler  than  the  spirit  of  those  who  use 
it ;  it  is  not  a  sign  of  a  living  faith  in  great  truths 
and  sanctities  in  the  hearts  of  those  who  sing  their 
hymns  and  offer  their  supplication  beneath  its  roof 

I  trust  and  will  believe  thaf  our  new  religious 
home  is  paid  for  already  in  the  generous,  if  yet 
uncompleted,  purpose  of  our  congregation.  I 
trust  and  believe  that  we  feel  the  joy  of  devoting 
it  to  the  highest  uses  and  the  most  sacred  truth 
which  the  heart  of  man  can  serve  and  the  thought 
of  man  can  entertain.  And  far  above  the  ele- 
ments of  nobleness  and  beauty  which  the  genius 
and  skill  of  man  have  wrought  into  its  workman- 
ship I  trust  and  pray  that  the  consecrating  noble- 
ness and  beauty  of  it  may  ever  be  that,  in  a  world 
of  change,  and  in  a  city  singularly  blessed  in  out- 
ward good  by  the  providence  of  God,  it  stands 
devoted  to  the  unchanging  love  of  the  Father  of 
all  spirits,  who  accepts  and  blesses  the  worship  of 
the  humble  heart. 


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